Girish Thakar
Dr. A. K. Chitale
Abstract
Every product has a finite life. When its end of life is perceived by the user, the product is abandoned by him. The product or its components or assemblies may still be useful in some form. Looking at the contemporary social need for achieving sustainability, this process should be carried out in an environment friendly manner. For achieving this objective, ELSEIM model and eco-indicator 99 manual have been used by the authors to quantify the end of life environmental impact of four automobile components (produced by various combinations of materials and processes), attributable to various end of life strategies. The results indicate scope of design improvement ofthese components, and it is also envisaged that, these results would be useful to the designers of these components for arriving at eco-friendly combination ofmaterials and processes.
Keywords- end of life strategies, sustainability, environmental impact, automobile components