Department of Environmental Engineering, Engineering Faculty, Eskişehir Technical University, 26555, Tepebaşı, Eskişehir, Turkey.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Engineering Faculty, Eskişehir Technical University, 26555, Tepebaşı, Eskişehir, Turkey.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2020 Dec;27(36):45076-45094. doi: 10.1007/s11356-020-10352-8. Epub 2020 Aug 10.
This study reports the results of a comparison made using life cycle assessment (LCA) analysis of the environmental impact of nine different sandwich material models (SMs). The objective is to reveal whether the candidate materials considered for a railway passenger vehicle (conventional or high-speed train) are green/environmentally friendly or not. For this aim, life cycle approach enables to take into account the light weighting gain without disregarding the environmental impact of manufacturing process. These SMs are designed as combinations of existing traditional and candidate materials, such as steel, aluminium, carbon/glass fibre-reinforced plastics (CFRP/GFRP), aluminium honeycomb, and polymer foam core. The environmental performance of these nine different models has been calculated via the LCA analysis with CML-IA v.3.0 impact assessment methodology in a SimaPro 8.5.0. The system boundaries in the LCA analysis include "cradle to grave" process of sandwich composite materials in the railway passenger vehicle. The functional unit was selected as "one product of SM" for each configuration; besides, this panel has a lifetime span of 25 years at 400,000 vehicle-km per year in the vehicle operation. The results show that the use-phase, which dominates the environmental impact of the SMs of the railway passenger vehicle car body, is itself largely affected by electricity generation. In particular, the mass reduction in the models also achieved a reduction in environmental impact over its lifetime, mainly owing to decreased energy consumption. Another important finding regarding the manufacture of certain models (such as CFRP and GFRP) for lightweight design, is that assessment, based solely on mass reduction, may not always have better environmental performance or be reliable due to the manufacturing impact.
本研究报告了使用生命周期评估（LCA）分析 9 种不同夹层材料模型（SM）的环境影响的比较结果。目的是揭示候选材料（传统或高速列车的铁路客车）是否为绿色/环保。为此，生命周期方法可以在不忽略制造过程对环境影响的情况下，考虑到轻量化收益。这些 SM 设计为现有传统和候选材料的组合，例如钢、铝、碳纤维/玻璃纤维增强塑料（CFRP/GFRP）、铝蜂窝和聚合物泡沫芯。通过使用 CML-IA v.3.0 影响评估方法在 SimaPro 8.5.0 中进行 LCA 分析，计算了这 9 种不同模型的环境性能。LCA 分析中的系统边界包括铁路客车夹层复合材料的“摇篮到坟墓”过程。功能单元被选为每种配置的“一个 SM 产品”；此外，该面板在车辆运行中每年 400,000 公里的使用寿命为 25 年。结果表明，在铁路客车车身 SM 的环境影响中占主导地位的使用阶段，本身在很大程度上受到发电的影响。特别是，模型的质量减轻也实现了其整个生命周期内环境影响的降低，主要是由于能耗的降低。关于某些模型（如 CFRP 和 GFRP）用于轻量化设计的制造的另一个重要发现是，仅基于质量减轻的评估并不总是具有更好的环境性能或可靠，因为制造影响。
