Data-driven cleaner production strategy for energy-intensive manufacturing industries: Case studies from Southern and Northern China

Cleaner production is an effective strategy for improving material utilization, reducing energy consumption, maximizing product output, and minimizing emissions during the entire manufacturing processes. An increasing number of enterprises promote the implementation of cleaner production. In the Industry 4.0 context, product-embedded information devices are widely used to capture product lifecycle data. Product lifecycle management provides an opportunity to achieve cleaner production strategy. This paper presents a data-driven cleaner production strategy by product lifecycle management for energy-intensive manufacturing industries. The data-driven strategy is proposed and explained by the lifecycle of cleaner production data. Implementation models are developed to illustrate the proposed data-driven cleaner production strategy. Furthermore, two case studies from Southern and Northern China are presented to demonstrate the strategy. Results show that the unit energy consumption and the energy cost of production in Company A are reduced by at least 3% after applying the proposed strategy. In addition, the “cradle-to-gate” lifecycle data analysis indicates that the costs of environmental pollution in Company B are diminished significantly. Finally, energy-intensive manufacturing companies in China are compared and evaluated, and the effectiveness of the proposed strategy is discussed.     

Analysis of thickness distribution of square-sectional hydroformed parts

Square-sectional parts are most commonly used on automobiles. The thickness uniformity is one of the key factors that affect the performance of hydroformed parts. In the present paper, the thickness distribution along the cross-section of a square-sectional hydroformed part is studied mathematically. The effects of the friction coefficient, the strain-hardening exponent and the anisotropic coefficient on the thickness distribution, and the variation regularity of the wall thickness are numerically explored. The analytical and simulation results show good agreement with those of the experiments. This study helps to further understand the mechanics of the tube hydroforming process and to provide more knowledge for die design and material selection.