ME 4171 - Environmentally Conscious Design and Manufacture

Instructor Bert Bras, Assistant Professor. Telephone: (404) 894-9667

Catalog Listing

Inclusion of environmental considerations in engineering design; reduction of environmental impact by design; recycling; material selection; demanufacturing and remanufacturing; life-cycle considerations and trade-offs.

Credits 3 quarter credits. Lecture/discussion 3 hours per week.

Prerequisites Senior standing (and ME 3110 or equivalent).

Textbook "Green Products by Design:  Choices for a Cleaner Environment", US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, OTA-E-541, US Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., October 1992. This can be downloaded from the Princeton OTA Archives which contains all past OTA reports.

Suppl. notes Course notes are on the web (http://www.srl.gatech.edu/education/ME4171/index.html). Some additional course notes may have to bought from GT Bookstore.

Objective

To provide Mechanical Engineering students and others interested in engineering design a view of how the environmental impact of engineering systems can be reduced by design.

Outcome

• The course is designed to give the students an opportunity to learn about environmentally conscious design, the growing national and international efforts in reducing the environmental impact of products, and how the environmental considerations affect the design's technical, economical and quality requirements.
• The understanding of the students is fostered by means of various hands-on assignments.
• The students should be able to use the knowledge gained in this course in practical design situations.

Assessment

A grade is determined using the following means:

• minor group projects and investigations (20%)
• individual homework, essays, investigations, critical evaluations (20%)
• one final exams regarding the material covered (30%), and
• a major group design project (30%). The students have to demonstrate the ability to apply the course material by designing an environmentally benign product and/or process.

Assessment of the project assignments is based on the originality/difficulty of the problem undertaken, technical content, and quality of report and results.

Tentative Topics and Lecture Plan:

1. Environmental impact of engineering products and processes
• Environmental health and safety
• Product life cycle stages
• Material toxicity, pollution, and degradation
• Environmentally conscious design and manufacturing approaches
• Sustainable development and industrial ecology
2. Life Cycle Design
• System life-cycles from cradle to reincarnation
• Design for X
• Product life-extension
• Organizational issues
3. Pollution Prevention
• Hazardous substances, legislation, EPA guidelines, regulations, and procedures
• Mass balances
• Pollution prevention practices
• Manufacturing process selection and trade-offs
4. Design for Environment
• Motivation, concerns, definitions, examples
• DFE practices, guidelines, methods, and tools
• Trade-offs
5. Recycling and Demanufacture
• Motivation (take-back legislation), concerns, definitions, examples
• Recycling and demanufacture processes
• Recyclability assessments
• Design for Recycling practices, guidelines, methods, and tools
• Trade-offs
6. Service, Reuse and Remanufacturing
• Motivation, issues, concerns, definitions, examples
• Remanufacture processes (disassembly, inspection, cleaning, testing, and reassembly)
• Remanufacturability assessments
• Design for Remanufacture/Reuse practices, guidelines, methods, and tools
• Lean remanufacture
• Trade-offs
7. Eco-Labels and Life-Cycle Analysis (LCA)
• Motivation, definitions, approaches, examples
• LCA methodology, steps, tools and problems
• Life-Cycle Accounting and Costing
8. ISO 14000 Environmental Management Standards
• Motivation, specifics, status, implementation
9. Sustainable development
• Motivation, definitions, issues
• Sustainable technologies
• New business paradigms and associated design practices

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Group Project Information

In General:

As mentioned in the syllabus, there will be a group project. You are free to form your own groups, but each group should consist of three members. I have a number of project topics you can choose from, but you are also free to identify a project topic on your own as long as it fits in the framework of the class. Regarding the project groups, I encourage you to select your group careful. Look around and identify people with similar project interests and ambitions as you. Don't just pick the person next to you in class.

Proposal and Progress Report:

Each group has to submit a project proposal (date to be announced). In the proposal, you have to specify

• what you are going to do,
• why you are going to do it,
• how you are going to do it, and
• what you have done so far.

You should write it as a real-world proposal from an engineer to a customer. I am the customer and you are trying to sell me your project. I will grade this proposal based on whether I would feel like "funding" your project. The purpose of writing this proposal is 1) to get you going on your project and 2) to give you some writing practice which you will need a lot in your future career. I will probably also request a progress report during the quarter just to "motivate" you a bit to get the work going.

My Expectations:

No matter what project you choose, I would like to see you demonstrate your ability in applying the material learned in class. That does not mean you have to cover all material learned, but I want to see whether you can actually do environmentally conscious design. The best way to approach the project is as follows. Consider you are a Research and Development group and your project is a consulting job for a client. The deliverable is a report in which you have to justify the correctness of your recommendations and final design to your client.

Final Report and Presentations:

The final project report is due at the last day of class. You will be graded based on

• technical content,
• originality/difficulty, and
• presentation (neatness) of the report.

I am also thinking about reserving the last week of class and/or the final exam period for group presentations because I think it will be interesting to see what your colleagues have come up with.

Potential Projects:

A list of potential projects will be given. I have no problems with more than one group working on the same project, but I would like to see at least one group for each industry sponsored project. You are also allowed to come up with your own project

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