Application of fuzzy quality function deployment for sustainable design of consumer electronics products: a case study

With a steep increase in the demand for consumer electronics products, the contemporary manufacturers are committed toward sustainable development of such products. There exists a scope for developing a methodology for enabling sustainable development of consumer electronics products. In this context, fuzzy quality function deployment (QFD) approach has been presented in this article in order to prioritize relevant customer requirements, sustainability parameters and sustainability initiatives. Key influential parameters for sustainable development of consumer electronics products have been identified from the literature. In the first phase of fuzzy QFD, parameters influencing sustainable development have been prioritized in accordance with customer requirements. In the second phase, environmental design initiatives have been prioritized based on critical sustainability parameters. From phase I of fuzzy QFD, ‘reduction in environmental release’ has been found as the most significant sustainability parameter with a crisp value of 22.83, and from phase II, environmental impact assessment is proved to be the significant design method with a crisp value of 20.40. The methodology would provide a comprehensive understanding to practitioners on the interrelationships among customer requirements, sustainability parameters and environmentally benign initiatives for development of consumer electronic products. The generic model developed can be applied to most of the consumer electronics product     

Estimating vulnerability to risks: an application in a biofuel supply chain

In the present work, we propose a theoretical model to identify and prioritize risks involved in a biofuel supply chain. We adopt a set of indicators associated with determinant factors of the supply chain to identify risks that are characterized through a risk matrix. We consider the five largest world biodiesel producers and included China due to its global market importance and potential impacts of its growth on the environment and society. To determine the impacts and the probability of occurrence of risks, we use the Canberra distance, as metrics. To facilitate the analysis and interpretation, a convenient manner is to express the results in terms of matrices. To exemplify the potentiality of the scheme and for the sake of simplicity, a more comprehensive discussion is focused on the Brazilian case, restricted to the Technology and Innovation, and Integration, Logistics and Infrastructure determining factors (dimensions) of the biodiesel supply chain. Concerning these determining factors, the Brazilian biodiesel chain shows strong vulnerability when compared with developed and developing countries, despite that the evolution of the data over recent years indicates small improvements in Integration, Logistics and Infrastructure dimension. Although in this work the calculations are restricted to the Canberra distance, the present approach may be applied to other distances to compare or validate the results. This work presents a contribution to model vulnerability to risks, providing to policy makers and stakeholders a tool to design, analyze and improve sustainability system by measuring its risks. The study of the contribution of each indicator suggests corrections to be taken and which indicators should be prioritized.     

Optimization of sodium sulfide treatment of rice straw to increase the enzymatic hydrolysis in bioethanol production

The efficiency of sodium sulfide-assisted alkaline pulping for cellulose preparation from Oryza sativa L. rice straw in Vietnam for enzymatic saccharification was investigated. The response surface methodology was used for the determination of optimal technological parameters of alkaline pulping such as active alkali dosage, temperature and time. The optimal technological parameters were established to be active alkali dosage of 7%, treatment temperature of 100 °C and treatment time of 120 min. At these regimes, a maximal sugar yield of 51.8% (over dry rice straw) was obtained. It meant that the saccharification efficiency up to 97.1% could be achieved by using sodium sulfide-assisted alkaline pretreatment method. Addition of sodium sulfide into alkaline pretreatment resulted in higher sugar yield, higher level of depolymerization of lignin and less loss of cellulose. Moreover, liquid hydrolyzate after enzymatic hydrolysis was analyzed by HPLC to determine the compositions of sugar mixture. The fiber morphology in pretreated biomass solid was also revealed by SEM.     

How can Cleaner Production practices contribute to meet ISO 14001 requirements? Critical analysis from a survey with industrial companies

The companies’ needs to adopt changes in their way of production to maximize the environmental performance required by their stakeholders, and at the same time, to maximize their economic and market performance, have made them seek for environmental strategies and certifications. In this sense, the Cleaner Production and the Environmental Management System based on ISO 14001 have been, respectively, presented, since the main objective of this research is to identify and analyze Cleaner Production contributions to comply with ISO 14001 requirements. For such, a survey research has been carried out in Brazilian industrial companies certified by ISO 14001. We have identified the main performance factors by leading practices and variables of Cleaner Production that contribute to the compliance with the standard requirements by companies. Thus, it has been noted that Cleaner Production is an important strategy for the preparation of companies for certification as well as for improving their environmental performance.     

Value recovery from end-of-use products facilitated by automated dismantling planning

Circular economy is a promising business model that promotes sustainable development by closing material loops. Making progress toward a circular economy requires the recovery of valuable materials and components from end-of-use products and subsequent reuse of them in some form, thus maximizing the utility of components and materials. Currently, end-of-use products value recovery is carried out without a rational planning, causing the loss of the recoverable value embedded in material and components. To address this problem, dismantling planning and appropriate technologies should be employed to improve the economic performance of end-of-use products value recovery. In this paper, a two-stage dismantling planning method is proposed to find a profitable end-of-use strategy. In the first stage of this method, disassembly optimization model is constructed and can be executed to obtain the optimal disassembly plan allowing maximum preservation of component function value, in a preservative disassembly scenario. To speed up the modeling, a method for automatic generation of AND/OR graph—a structure of incorporating all possible disassembly operations and associated subassemblies, is presented. In the second stage of the method, in order to increase profitability, Pareto analysis is employed to identify bottlenecks to disassembly and automated/destructive technologies are considered to remove the bottlenecks. A hard disk drive serves as a case study to illustrate the suggested method.     

Investigation of deep drawing concept of multi-point forming process in terms of prevalent defects

Multi-point forming is a novel flexible process that is economically suitable for both rapid prototyping and batch production of sheet metal parts. This technique is established based on altering rigid dies by matrices of adjustable punch elements. In this paper, the basic principle of this technique is implemented on deep drawing process. A reconfigurable die was constructed to investigate the multi-point deep drawing process. AA 2024-O Aluminum alloy was designated as test material. The formed specimens were evaluated in terms of dimpling defect, rupture, thickness distribution and dimensional accuracy. The onset of rupture was predicted by integrating the forming limit diagram of employed material with finite element Code. The predicted results were in a reasonable agreement with the experimental tests. It was found that for complete elimination of dimpling defect and acquiring maximum drawing depth, the proper allocation of elastic layer parameters such as thickness and hardness was crucial. The conducted investigations indicated that, in general, dimensional accuracy of formed parts was acceptable. However, for areas with sharp changes in geometry such as corners and side walls, deviation from desired geometry was evident. This phenomenon was remarkably dominant for manufactured parts utilizing softer elastic layer.     

Inverse analysis procedure to determine flow stress and friction data for finite element modeling of machining

This paper describes an inverse procedure to determine the constitutive constants and the friction conditions in the machining processes using Finite Elements (FE) simulations. In general, the FE modeling of machining processes is an effective tool to analyze the materials machinability under different cutting conditions. However, the use of reliable rheological and friction models represents the basis of a correct numerical investigation. The presented inverse procedure was based on the numerical results obtained using a commercial FE code and was developed considering a specific optimization problem, in which the objective functions that have to be minimized is the experimental/numerical error. This problem was performed by a routine developed in a commercial optimization software. In order to verify the goodness and the robustness of the methodology, it was applied on a Super Duplex Stainless Steel (SDSS) and on an Austenitic Stainless Steel (AUSS) orthogonal machining processes. This work, then, was focused on the identification of the Johnson-Cook (JC) coefficients (A,B,C, n and m) and on the calibration of a Coulomb friction model, in the specific cases of the SAF2507 SDSS and of an AISI 316 Based AUSS Alloy (AISI 316 ASBA). The identification phases were performed considering forces and temperatures experimental data, collected in two specific experimental tasks in which different orthogonal cutting tests were carried out under different cutting parameters conditions.     

Thermal modeling in electricity assisted incremental sheet forming

A thermal model was built to account for the effects of geometrical parameters of sheet specimen, process parameters and material parameters on the temperature increase of the sheet specimen in Electricity-Assisted Incremental Sheet Forming (EISF). In the EISF, the local area of sheet specimen contacting with a forming tool is heated by direct current, which flows through the forming tool to the sheet specimen. EISF experiments of two high strength steel sheets were carried out to validate the thermal model. The thermal model can be integrated into the control program of EISF system to achieve more accurate temperature control.     

About the origins of residual stresses in <Emphasis Type="Italic">in situ</Emphasis> consolidated thermoplastic composite rings

In a context of cost reduction, in situ filament winding of thermoplastic matrix composites becomes an appealing process. As residual stresses could considerably affect the produced part, models were proposed to predict process-induced residual stresses. After developing a validated thermal model of the process, mainly three different aspects are here addressed: the continuous bonding occurring during the process, the effect of the processed layer on the structure, and the effect of the curvature of the mandrel. While stresses coming from the continuous bonding appeared to be negligible, consequent levels of stresses can be achieved due to an iterative compression of the structure by the tow (supposed to be under tension). The mandrel properties and the tow tension profile followed during winding are essential parameters that might induce several different stress states. A comparison between measured and computed end-to-end openings of split rings illustrates the accuracy of the proposed models.     

Spinel-layered integrate structured nanorods with both high capacity and superior high-rate capability as cathode material for lithium-ion batteries

Spinel phase LiMn2O4 was successfully embedded into monoclinic phase layeredstructured Li2MrnO3 nanorods,and these spinel-layered integrate structured nanorods showed both high capacities and superior high-rate capabilities as cathode material for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs).Pristine Li2MnO3 nanorods were synthesized by a simple rheological phase method using α-MnO2 nanowires as precursors.The spinel-layered integrate structured nanorods were fabricated by a facile partial reduction reaction using stearic acid as the reductant.Both structural characterizations and electrochemical properties of the integrate structured nanorods verified that LiMn2O4 nanodomains were embedded inside the pristine Li2MnO3 nanorods.When used as cathode materials for LIBs,the spinel-layered integrate structured Li2MnO3 nanorods (SL-Li2MnO3) showed much better performances than the pristine layered-structured Li2MnO3 nanorods (L-Li2MnO3).When charge-discharged at 20 mA·g-1 in a voltage window of 2.0-4.8 V,the SL-Li2MnO3 showed discharge capadties of 272.3 and 228.4 mAh.g-1 in the first and the 60th cycles,respectively,with capacity retention of 83.8％.The SL-Li2MnO3 also showed superior high-rate performances.When cycled at rates of 1 C,2 C,5 C,and 10 C (1 C =200 mA·g-1) for hundreds of cycles,the discharge capacities of the SL-Li2MnO3 reached 218.9,200.5,147.1,and 123.9 mAh·g-1,respectively.The superior performances of the SL-Li2MnO3 are ascribed to the spineMayered integrated structures.With large capacities and superior high-rate performances,these spinel-layered integrate structured materials are good candidates for cathodes of next-generation high-power LIBs.