The aim of this work is to evaluate the quality of a proposed product design using environmental criteria. This paper reports on the development of a methodology for designing bottles using specific features related to them and on a procedure for evaluating the environmental impact of the design, by suggesting forms which leads to the reduction of their material and therefore to a lower impact on the environment during their life cycle. The shape of the bottle is formed by separating it into a number of parts such as necks, bodies, bases and handles. A number of parametrically defined forms are provided by the system enabling the automatic configuration of the product. The system automatically generates the final shape and assigns the appropriate dimensions and relations. Using the Bottle Material Volume Evaluation Tool the system calculates two factors to evaluate the material volume of each bottle part and compare it to the minimal one for the specific volume and to quantify the effect of the modification of the part's dimensions on the volume of the packaging material. This design method can provide us a quantification of the effect of increasing (or decreasing) a dimension on the amount of part material, which is being saved, a definition of the profile that the part should have in order to reduce the material and a methodology for specifying height to width ratio, which leads to the biggest reduction of the material volume of a part. The proposed product has been implemented on a commercial parametric feature based solid modeling system.
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