Product Recovery-Cycles Design- Extension of Useful Life

摘要

This paper reports the development of a tool to aid designers in making the best choices in order to plan recovery cycles for a product at the end of its working life. Having outlined an effective design methodology for this purpose, a calculation model was developed to support the methodology. The model was based on the quantification of determining factors, allowing the definition of the reusable parts of the architecture and the evaluation of the values assumed by an indicator which translates the environmental effects of recovery cycles in terms of extension of the product's useful life. A trial conducted on a commonly used industrial unit, a heat exchanger, demonstrated the value of the design tool in comparing different architectures of a product and their optimisation, confirming its effectiveness as calculation model for the environmental quality-oriented product design.