Environmental Analysis of Manufacturing Processes

这个项目的目的是开发模型和建模框架来表征制造过程的环境性能。该项目将涉及八种不同的工艺：铣削、研磨、电火花加工、磨料水射流加工、砂型铸造、压铸、注塑成型和先进的复合材料高压罐加工。并通过收集每个案例的数据和清单，在七个不同的影响类别：能源、废物、回收、危险材料、水的使用和污染、向空气的排放和向陆地的排放。该项目的核心将是为三个关键环境指标--能源、废物和熵以及有毒和危险材料--开发“负重”设备水平模型和生命周期材料流动模型。有了适当的数据，这些模型将能够比较替代工艺的环境性能；替代工艺计划，并提出新的工艺开发。需要这些信息，以便更明确地关注可持续未来的制造工艺发展需求。此外，这些模型将被改装用于产品设计，以帮助环境设计。这项工作的中心主题是开发制造过程的另一种观点。除了在增加附加值方面极其重要之外，一些过程也可能被视为相反的：通过过度使用能源和材料，以及混合和稀释材料，使它们无法被重新获取，从而潜在地威胁环境。这一替代观点对于适当评估现有和未来进程的“可持续性”是必要的。此外，这项工作还建议开发一种新的过程度量--熵变--以评估回收和回收所用材料的潜力。该方法建立在香农的信息论的基础上，通过构型熵方法得出了几个新的结果。该工作计划包括八篇本科论文，由一名高级研究生和教师导师指导，并与另外三名在机械加工、铸造工艺以及有毒和危险材料方面具有特殊专业知识的教职员工合作。结果将通过网页和期刊文章广泛向公众公布。

The purpose of this project is to develop models and a modeling framework to characterize the environmental performance of manufacturing processes. The project will address eight different processes: milling, grinding, electrical discharge machining, abrasive water jet machining, sand casting, die casting, injection molding, and advanced composites autoclave processing. And, in seven different impact categories: energy, wastes, recycling, hazardous materials, use and contamination of water, emissions to air, and emissions to land, by collecting data and inventories for each case. The centerpiece of this project will be the development of "burdened" equipment level models, and life cycle materials flow models for three key environmental indicators: energy, waste and entropy, and toxic and hazardous materials. With the appropriate data, these models will be able to compare the environmental performance of alternative processes; alternative process plans, and propose new process developments. This information is needed to more clearly focus attention on manufacturing process development needs for a sustainable future. Furthermore, these models will be adapted for use in product design to aid design for the environment. The central theme of this work is to develop an alternative view of manufacturing processes. In addition to being hugely important as value adding, some processes could also be seen as the opposite: as potentially threatening the environment by excessive energy and materials usage, and by mixing and diluting materials such that they cannot be recaptured. This alternative view is necessary to properly evaluate the "sustainability" of existing and future processes. In addition, this work proposes the development of a new process metric - the entropy change -- to assess the potential for recapturing and recycling the materials used. The methodology builds on Shannon's information theory, with several new results derived from a configurationally entropy approach. The work plan involves eight undergraduate theses, under the supervision of a senior graduate student and faculty advisor, and with the collaboration of three additional faculty members with particular expertise in machining processes, casting processes, and toxicity and hazardous materials. The results will be made widely available to the public via a web page and journal articles.