1,721,168 research outputs found
Combining energy monitoring and LCA/LCCA analyses to improve the sustainability of an extrusion process
No full textPurpose It is well known that industrial processes require large consumption of energy and other resources during the product manufacturing phase. This exploitation of energy is reflected both in terms of environmental impact and in terms of economic impact, which can be measured through specific tools. The measurement of these environmental and economic impacts is an essential step towards both the control of the energy consumption and energy costs and in sustainability energy assessment. In this paper is presented the extrusion process of plastic materials in a big Italian company. This process is highly energy-consuming and for this reason it is necessary monitoring the energy consumption and controlling the process parameters to increase the energy sustainability and, at the same time, decrease the environmental and social impacts. The aim of this work is presenting a methodology to capture the extrusion process sustainability to have a base line useful to compare the results of any other extrusion process assessment. Design/methodology/approach The proposed methodology aims to identify the high energy consuming machineries, components, and devices in the company. To do this, the industrial process must be organised in several functional components which have a specific number of input and output. The first step in this propose is the process evaluation in terms of the definition of the functional modules involved and the identification of the input/output needed in each one. After the collection of these data, the next step is the assessment of the environmental and economic impacts through Life Cycle Assessment analysis (LCA) and Life Cycle Cost Assessment analysis (LCCA). This study is supported by a hardware and software infrastructure among the extrusion process machineries and the SimaPro tool to conduct the LCA and LCCA analyses. Originality/value The innovation of this paper is to consider the Life Cycle Assessment of a process through the evaluation of each its components. The resulted impacts are focused on the process sustainability and not on the product sustainability as is instead largely made clear in the literature. The results of this work are related to the definition of a methodology in the field of industrial processes evaluation; in fact, it has been defined a new approach to conduct the Life Cycle Assessment focused on the industrial process and it has been suggested a method to evaluate the Energy Sustainability in a highly energy-consuming process
Investigating the sustainability of a high-energy consuming industrial process to achieve total quality
No full textIn the last century, the quality factor is seen as the key to success of each industry. In industrial companies, total quality management (TQM) principles have been introduced to achieve specific innovations in product and process development, though the continuous improvement (CI). Simultaneously, industrial companies think sustainable manufacturing as a means to create innovation, respecting environmental, economic and social themes. In fact, when a product reach the maturity stage of its life cycle, the improvements are no longer on product itself, but on its production process, optimising energy and resources use, eliminating waste, adopting sustainable end-of-life (EoL) policies, and reducing costs. Indeed, industrial processes require large consumption of resources during the product manufacturing phase. In this context, the paper aims to create a link between sustainable manufacturing and TQM principles, defining a new methodology that uses life cycle assessment (LCA) to assess the impacts of industrial processes inside the existing ‘plan, do, check, act’ (PDCA) method
Datum identification for tolerances control on dense clouds of points
No full textOptical Reverse Engineering systems are evermore used to check dimensional and shape conformity of manufactured components; their main advantage is the short acquisition time. Dedicated CAD software tools allow comparing the acquired data (clouds of points) with the 3D CAD model. Generally, they support the automatic global shape measurement; from the designer viewpoint this is not sufficient. The desired functional behavior of component is respected only when specific geometrical tolerances are verified. Our aim is the definition of methods to automate this last control process using Full of Information (FoI) CAD models. We define them as 3D model containing tolerance attributes and methods to check them. They allow comparing the toleranced features with the corresponding parts of point clouds. The present paper describes the approach and the developed method for datum identification usable for orientation and localization geometrical tolerances control. © 2008 CAD Solutions, LLC
An approach to support model based definition by PMI annotations
No full textPMI annotations are widely used to support the Model Based Design within modern companies. In
particular, the introduction of digital annotations marks the transition from the 2D drawings to the
3D representation in many manufacturing and design companies. However, today the implementation
of the PMI technology presents some limits, such as the lack of functions to generate structure
templates to be applied to similar CAD models. The proposed approach aims to overcome the limits
of traditional tools which are not able to add a PMI annotation’s structure from one model to
another one. The paper describes a method to reuse digital PMI annotations in a new model during
the design phase, where the annotations are inherited from similar CAD documents. The proposed
approach is based on two levels of geometric analysis: the searching of similar template models
from an XML database, and the identification of the related geometric entities, which are used as
associated objects for the definition of 3D annotations. The test case is focused on the automatic
generation of PMI annotations for exhaust duct items used in oil & gas applications. The proposed
tool has been developed within a software program called Duct Designer, which is used for the
CAD automation of duct items. Particularly, the test case enhances the retrieval and reuse of sizing
schemes from previous 3D models in order to obtain an automatic rebuilding of the geometric
annotations
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
ENVIRONMENTAL EVALUATION FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE WITH CAD‐INTEGRATED LCA TOOLS
No full textRobust product environmental evaluation has to consider the whole lifecycle, called “cradle to grave” analysis.
This activity gives wide benefits if carried out in the early design phases. CAD‐SLCA integrated systems are innovative ecodesign
tools usable during product design feature definition in order to support SLCA (Simplified Life Cycle Assessment)
method application. The present work describes how the CAD‐SLCA approach can be put in practice by considering the
assessment of the complete product lifecycle and by using a new software tool which integrates data from different design
supporting systems. Particular focus has been placed on the use phase and end of life treatment. An example shows the
approach result
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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