Record Details
Sustainability assessment during early product development : the manufacturing case and the use case
ScholarsArchive at Oregon State University
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Title | Sustainability assessment during early product development : the manufacturing case and the use case |
| Names |
Seyedmahmoudighomi, Seyedhamed
(creator) Haapala, Karl R. (advisor) |
| Date Issued | 2014-05-21 (iso8601) |
| Note | Graduation date: 2014 |
| Abstract | The research explored in this thesis helps provide a better understanding of efforts that have been undertaken to more precisely calculate environmental impacts and human health risks, such as energy consumption, carbon footprint, and toxicity, to support environmental sustainability assessment of products. The work is comprised of two research objectives, the first research objective explores the integration of the environmental aspect of sustainability performance into the design of common products, manufacturing processes, and relevant supply chain networks to assist decision makers. The second research objective explores the challenges of safety concerns, human health risks, and toxicological responses in developing novel products. The framework developed for the first objective relies on manufacturing and supply chain unit process modeling, and is demonstrated for the evaluation of backpack design variants. It is shown that simultaneous consideration of manufacturing and supply chain processes can impact decision-making and improve product sustainability from an environmental perspective at the design stage. For the second objective, nanomaterials are a focus due to their potential to enable advanced technologies; however, little is known about their effects on the environment and human health. This research builds on a prior investigation of the stability and toxicity characteristics of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) used in metalworking nanofluids (MWnF™). For stability analysis and toxicological assessment, the dynamic light scattering (DLS) method and the zebrafish assay method are applied, respectively, to evaluate the development of TiO₂ and ZnO MWnF™ formulations. In general, the results reveal addition of these NPs causes a higher mortality rate in comparison to NP-free formulations. From this thesis research, it is concluded that integrating evaluation of sustainable manufacturing and use performance into early product development provides the opportunity for improved engineering decision making. As a contribution, a point of departure is established for the research community to move current efforts forward for concurrent consideration of multiple stages of the product life cycle in pursuit of environmental, economic, and social sustainability. By pursuing this path, future research will ease some of the most challenging recent issues faced by decision makers globally, including use of non-renewable resources, GHG emissions and climate change, human health risks, toxicity, and potential health hazards. |
| Genre | Thesis/Dissertation |
| Access Condition | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/ |
| Topic | New products -- Environmental aspects |
| Identifier | http://hdl.handle.net/1957/49782 |
