| The overall goal of this dissertation is to integrate life cycle environmental performance into the automotive design process. Life cycle assessment (LCA) technique is applied to the study. There are several intermediate objectives in approaching this goal. First of all, an average 1994 U.S made car has been chosen as the base-case car. A life cycle inventory for the base-case car has been developed in order to evaluate the environment attributes of the base-case car and identify proper ways to quantify the environment attributes in each life stage of the car. Second, a case for materials substitution has been conducted to investigate the environmental implications of materials substitution on the base-case car. A new cyclic thermoplastic (CTP) composite material and aluminum have been used as replacements to steel on the base-case car. Third, a case for alternative fuel systems has been studied. The alternative fuels are derived from coal. The alternative fuel systems are compared against a gasoline base car. Finally, a framework for incorporating LCA into the life cycle design process of automotive products has been established in order to achieve better environmental performance. Major conclusions include: (1) LCA can be used as a quantitative tool to provide better understanding of the distribution of the environmental burdens during the life cycle of an automobile. (2) The operation stage of the automobile life cycle has the greatest environmental impact, while the post use stage has the smallest contribution. (3) Total energy consumption yields good proxy for overall environmental performance for automobiles. (4) For the material substitution case, when 1000 pounds of steel are replaced by CTP-graphite composites, a life cycle energy improvement of 10% is predicted by the model. (5) For the alternative fuel systems case, all the alternative scenarios have lower energy efficiencies than the base case car. No single alternative fuel system is best for all emission categories. |
