1,721,032 research outputs found
A new interactive design method for carbon fibres laminate component
Full text linkCarbon fibre is the most common reinforcing phase in composite materials. However, it is difficult to determine the performance parameters of a monofilament. This paper provides an efficient method for performing the global layup optimization of composite laminates, considering the relationship between material characteristics and process parameters. In particular, a new method is proposed that, by integrating commercial tools, can support designers in the design and construction of carbon fibre components. The approach involves four functional groups that interact with each other: requirements and specifications, material definition, process implementation, and design and simulation. The idea is to create a continuous process to realize continuous product optimization. The approach was applied to the optimization of the front wing of a Formula 4 vehicle. After the validation method phase, through a comparison between real data and numerical simulations, product optimization was conducted. Different optimized solutions were obtained, and the solution minimizing the mass but ‘allowing the vehicle to bear stress and strain values within the required limits was chosen. This methodology can be applied to support the designer during both the early design phase and the optimization phase of laminated products
Knowledge-based approaches to support the design and development of the electrochemical storage systems
No full textL’esigenza di abbreviare il cosiddetto “time-to-market” è prerogativa di tutte le imprese che operano nei vari settori industriali, al fine di ritagliarsi una vantaggiosa posizione nel mercato, nei confronti dei concorrenti.
Il processo di progettazione si è concentrato principalmente sulla riduzione dei costi, diminuendo i tempi di produzione, senza diminuire la qualità del prodotto. Al giorno d'oggi anche gli aspetti ambientali ricoprono un ruolo fondamentale e rappresentano un fattore importante per il successo sul mercato dei prodotti, infatti, tra i consumatori si sta sviluppando una sensibilità ambientale sempre crescente. Da queste considerazioni viene alla luce l’esigenza di studiare e sviluppare un approccio basato sulla conoscenza in grado di assistere i progettisti durante tutta la vita del prodotto, analizzando gli aspetti legati alle prestazioni, ai costi ed agli aspetti ambientali.
Di conseguenza una delle problematiche più importanti è quella di riuscire a diminuire i costi e i tempi di passaggio tra idea e lancio sul mercato; avere perciò a disposizione delle tecnologie, in grado di prevedere i comportamenti reali dei vari sistemi, determina un notevole vantaggio in termini economici ed organizzativi.
Le aziende di successo sono quelle in grado di migliorare le risorse umane e che hanno creato condizioni particolari in grado di far evolvere e sviluppare le conoscenze e know-how. Queste considerazioni sono sempre più necessarie quando si considera l'evoluzione dell'economia occidentale, in cui, ci troviamo di fronte a dover produrre prodotti personalizzati di elevata quantità.
La sfida per le imprese di ingegneria italiana è quello di vendere prodotti di qualità continuando a sviluppare soluzioni innovative in modo rapido, e mantenendo bassi i costi. Per poter rispondere a questa sfida le aziende devono investire sempre di più nel processo di progettazione al fine di garantire il futuro della stessa società con strategie dedicate per l'innovazione e la tecnologia.Gli obiettivi di questo lavoro possono essere sintetizzati come la definizione di un nuovo approccio di progettazione, basato sulla conoscenza in grado di fornire nuovi strumenti per l’analisi e le valutazioni delle prestazioni dei prodotti in differenti scenari applicativi.
Il lavoro svolto si sofferma sull’analisi dei sistemi di accumulo di ultima generazione costituiti da batterie agli ioni litio utilizzate sia nell’ambito dell’autotrazione che in applicazioni stazionarie. È comunque possibile applicare la metodologia di lavoro descritta anche ad altri casi applicativi. Per quanto riguarda la progettazione di pacchi batteria, il lavoro svolto rappresenta un primo passo per la definizione e progettazione dei sistemi di accumulo agli ioni di litio. In particolare, all’interno di questa tesi di ricerca è stato analizzato lo stato dell’arte dei principali sistemi di accumulo, soffermando l’attenzione sulla tecnologia al litio e dei loro principali problemi di utilizzo. Una profonda analisi è stata effettuata per la determinazione del calore generato dalle singole batterie al litio durante il loro funzionamento. I risultati della ricerca sono stati applicati a piccole produzioni personalizzate, sia di veicoli elettrici, sia di sistemi di accumulo per abitazioni
Determination of the Optimal Configuration of Energy Recovery Ventilator through Virtual Prototyping and DoE Techniques
No full textAbstractThis study presents an approach based on Design of Experiment (DoE) technique for the optimization of an energy recovery ventilator (ERV). This system is one of the efficient ways to enhance the thermo-hygrometric comfort without increase excessively the thermal load in domestic kitchen. However, there is a major concern, which energy recovery cannot trade off ERV's fan power consumption. The goal of this study is to obtain the information about the relation between factors and response in an empirical way. This approach integrates three different levels of analysis: the virtual prototyping, Design of Experiment (DoE) and rapid prototyping. The virtual analysis allows to define the principal parameterization of a simplified model and to simulate the performance of each configuration at working condition. The proposed approach investigates the effect of the defined parameters and noise factor on the experimental results. In particular, the applied method for DoE analysis is based on virtual experiments in according to the necessity to reduce time and costs during the early design phase. The optimum parameters configuration, which is defined by the previous step, is useful to define the geometry and the working condition of a reliable virtual model. The final level is the realization of a 3D ERV with a rapid prototyping printer. The obtained component is now evaluable at the test bench to investigate the air flow rate and the electric power consumption
Environmental Analysis of Different End of Life Scenarios of Tires Textile Fibers
No full textAbstractEnd-of-Life Tires (ELT) are one of the main source of waste in End of Life Vehicles (ELVs). Textile fibers represent about 10% in weight of the ELT and every year, in Europe, about 320,000 tons of dirty fibrous material must be disposed as special waste. Studies show that the fibrous material can be used in second life applications, reducing the environmental impacts of tires disposal, but none of these researches quantitatively evaluate the achievable benefits. This study presents a comparative evaluation of the environmental impacts of the tires considering different scenarios for the end of life of the textile fibers material
Investigating students’ eco-misperceptions in applying eco-design methods
No full textThis study collects and discusses the misperceptions about eco-design, renamed eco-misperception, emerged from a group of students while applying common eco-design methods. We define eco misperceptions as erroneous interpretations of the novice eco-designers, about the environmental sustainability of design solutions, according to more experienced eco-designers. They are detectable by qualitatively or quantitatively analysing how the novice eco-designers present the proposed or identified design solutions. To obtain the eco-misperceptions, the end-of-year projects and the interviews of 61 students attending the master’s degree in mechanical and management engineering from two Italian universities were considered. These projects concern the reduction of the environmental impacts of three real industrial products, supported by existing eco-design methods. The systematic analysis of the proposed solutions showed that students committed different eco- misperceptions, not related to the comprehension of eco-design but to its practical application and involving different aspects: the psychological inertia leading to address a given problem in a habitual way, the selection of the not appropriate examples to inspire, a limited consideration regarding the life cycle of the product, the difficulty in selecting the appropriate level of detail during eco-design and eco-assessment, and the difficulty in dealing with problems presented in a descriptive way rather than through a precise mathematical formulation. Unlike other contributions in the literature, in this study the collected eco-misperception are in greater number, more heterogeneous, more detailed in definition and contextualised through examples that can be used to improve eco-design courses
Design optimization of customizable centrifugal industrial blowers for gas turbine power plants
Full text linkNowadays, design processes demand agile and flexible tools and methods to meet market needs. Virtual prototyping techniques are widespread in design strategies and practices, because these technologies reduce the project development lead-time and cost related to physical prototyping. The aim of this paper is the study and application of an approach for the modeling, simulation and geometrical optimization of fans for gas turbine air supply. Fan is a type of machine used to move a fluid, typically a gas such as air, exploiting the kinetic energy of a rotating impeller. It consists mainly of two components: housing and rotor. There is extensive literature on the design and optimization of industrial fan, but main works refer to a small or medium standardized fan, where it is possible to study many parameters and perform many experimental tests. The paper presents an approach for the efficiency optimization of large and customizable centrifugal industrial blowers for gas turbine air supply. The design variables investigated in this study were the blades quantity, orientation and shape. The proposed optimization method has been used for the design optimization of a blower for gas turbine power plant. The response surfaces allowed defining correlation between design variables and efficiency. The optimized design was 18 % more efficient than the original one
Comparative life cycle assessment of two different battery technologies: lithium iron phosphate and sodium-sulfur
Full text linkThe generation, storage and use of electric energy is a relevant issue for the modern society that is dependent from this energy typology for its activities (e.g. heating, goods production). Batteries are key components for the storage of electric energy, to be used for a large set of domestic, industrial and transport applications. The paper investigates the environmental impacts of two different battery technologies used as accumulator in the context of a production plant: (i) the lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) battery, and (ii) the sodium-sulfur (NaS) battery. The analyses have been performed according to the Life Cycle Assessment methodology, by using the ReCiPe method at midpoint and endpoint levels to quantify the potential environmental impacts. Results highlight the principal impact of two different technologies, considering all environmental indicators. Results show that the LiFePO4 solution can be considered the most sustainable solution for the considered industrial application. However, the difference is very small, within 2% and strongly influenced by the energy needed to recharge the batteries during the use phase. Instead, if we consider the production of batteries, the NaS solution resulted the most sustainable solution with an impact in terms of the aggregated single score damage category of about a half in comparison with the LiFePO4 solution
Technical and environmental assessment of a circular economy scenario for end of life tires fibers used as reinforcement in plastic compounds
No full textAutomotive and tire markets are constantly increasing, with a huge quantity of end of life tires (ELT) that have to be managed each year to mitigate potential environmental issues. Thanks to the adoption of specific legislation about the waste management, most of the materials deriving from ELT are properly recovered, but there is still a room for improvement in particular for what regard the ELT fibers that are currently dismantled in landfills or incinerated. In this context, the present study aims to propose an innovative scenario for the management of ELT fibers, focused on the reuse of such material for the production of polypropylene (PP)-based compounds. The final objective is to validate this idea by verifying the technical feasibility, as well as to understand if and to what extent reuse of ELT fibers in plastic compounds leads to environmental benefits. From the technical point of view the proposed PP-based compound reinforced with 45% ELT fibers in weight resulted to have acceptable properties in terms of mechanical resistance and extrudability and good performance in terms of impact resistance that suggests the applicability in several applications as pallets manufacturing. From the environmental point of view, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study at midpoint level suggests that the proposed scenario can be considered an interesting option against the other currently implemented EoL strategies, even if for some impact categories it does not lead to environmental benefits. However, by jointly considering potential damages on human health, ecosystems and resource depletion at endpoint level, the proposed reuse scenario can be univocally considered the most environmentally sustainable strategy for ELT fibers management
Fostering Design for Sustainability through the Adoption of Computer-Aided Engineering Tools in the Development of Energy-Related Products
Full text linkThe main challenge to face in the development of energy-related products is represented by the adoption of effective design for sustainability strategies that encompasses the adoption of engineering design tools, knowledge collection, and reuse/sharing in technical departments. This present paper proposes an engineering design for sustainability methodology that assists engineers in developing energy-related products in compliance with ecodesign standards. The methodology uses virtual prototyping tools to assess energy consumption in compliance with energy labeling directives and analyze different use scenarios. The results obtained by numerical simulations (e.g., Finite Element Method—FEM, Computational Fluid Dynamics—CFD) are used to create specific design eco-knowledge in the field of energy-related products. Numerical results are linked with design configurations to understand the benefits introduced by engineering design choices. This knowledge is stored in a structured database with the aim of being reused when a new product is developed or improved/upgraded. The case study of an induction hob, belonging to the household appliance product family, is investigated to understand the potential and drawbacks of the presented approach in a real application. The results show that potential energy and environmental performance benefits are achieved (e.g., reduction of energy losses, achievement of A+ energy class, and overall life cycle environmental impact reduction). Additionally, a new set of ecodesign guidelines are defined for this product family and employed in developing new compliant products belonging to the same family
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