BE/MUSES:Moving to Sustainability: Improving and Valuing Materials Flow of the Metal Casting Industry

90%的制成品都含有金属铸件。美国有2600多家铸造厂，雇佣了20万人。行业发货量几乎等同于废钢使用量，90%以上用于制造模具的沙子被回收利用。美国80%的铸造厂员工不到100人，这些铸造厂往往是当地社区不可或缺的一部分。该项目的目标是评估和改善铸铁铸造厂的物流，从而确定可持续发展的道路。该项目将确定先进氧化技术、材料替代、减排创新和减轻重量战略带来的原材料成本和排放量的显著减少，并进行社会经济分析，以评估铸造厂在可持续社会中的价值。这个项目将在几个尺度上检查这些物质流动，包括工厂、美国工业和国际水平。材料流动将从原材料提取和准备、金属铸造和产品回收进行测量。这些包含能源、劳动力和资本支出信息的物流将为工厂层面的经济优化模型中的成本核算提供基础。该项目通过小试实验对新技术的可行性进行评估，为工艺优化模型提供技术参数。在私人和社会成本最小化的情况下，将解决成本最低的一组活动。社会成本包括私人成本和外部环境成本。该模型将用于评估美国金属铸造业对当地社区、美国经济和世界经济的社会经济影响。

Ninety percent of all manufactured products contain metal casting. There are over 2600 foundries in the US employing 200,000 people. Industry shipments nearly equal scrap use and over 90% of the sand used to make molds is recycled. Eighty percent of US foundries have less than 100 employees and these foundries are often an integral part of local communities. The goal of this project is to evaluate and improve the materials flows for cast iron foundries thereby identifying sustainable development paths. The project will identify significant reductions in raw materials costs and emissions from advanced oxidation technology, materials substitutions, emissions reduction innovations, and weight reduction strategies and conduct a socio-economic analysis to estimate the value of foundries in a sustainable society. This project will examine these material flows at several scales, including plants, US industry, and international levels. Material flows will be measured from raw material extraction and preparation, metals casting, and product recovery. These material flows with information on energy, labor, and capital expenditures will provide the basis for cost accounts in an economic optimization model at the plant level. This project assesses the feasibility of new technologies via bench scale experiments, providing technical coefficients for the process optimization model. The least cost set of activities will be solved under private and social cost minimization. Social costs include private and external environmental costs. This model will be used to assess the socioeconomic impact of the U.S. metal casting industry on local communities, the US economy, and the world economy.