Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
SUSTAINABILITY IN PRODUCT DESIGN ENGINEERING
By: Elia Abdulkarim
Sustainability is the application of developing products to reduce negative environmental effects.
Sustainability aims to meet our current needs without jeopardising the next generation's ability to meet their own (Portney 2015).
Product design is at the heart of engineering.
Incorporating sustainability into Product design is the first step
Plastics are commonly used in manufacturing
but they have a lot of negative environmental impact
They release high amounts of CO2 and waste
The solution: bioplastics
PLA is a biodegradable thermoplastic (Sin & Tueen 2019)
Its produced through a direct condensation reaction (Sin & Tueen 2019)
it produces much less CO2 than most petrloleum based plastics
PLA is also biodegradable
The most common application for PLA in product design is 3D printing (Sin & Tueen 2019)
PLA has a low melting point of 150°C–175°C (Sin & Tueen 2019)
It emits minimal odour and fumes making it ideal to work with (Sin & Tueen 2019)
Other PLA grades are ideal to use for mobile and computer casings (Sin & Tueen 2019)
PLA has a low melting point
It can take very long to degrade and often has to be done through a process called hydrolysis
There are issues with placing human needs at the center of the design process
Like overconsumption of resources due to environmental neglect (Borthwick, Tomitsch, & Gaughwin, 2022).
Life centred design is a technique that considers all life and not just human life (Borthwick, Tomitsch & Gaughwin 2022).
This framework aims to maintain the values of human-centred design while making environmental and ethical concerns a main priority (Lau 2004).
This framework argues in order for a product to succeed, we have to take into account not only desirability, viability, feasibility, financial viability but also environmental factors
This model is new, which means there is a high probability that impracticalities will be found in the implementation of this model.
This however opens up an area for future study and research
Because of the world's environmental situation, sustainable practices in product design engineering are evolving and becoming increasingly important.
If biodegradable polymers are used on a greater scale
there is the possibility for significant reductions in carbon dioxide concentrations and plastic waste
Despite slow progress in sustainable approaches
engineers are constantly refining new design frameworks
Sustainability is an ethical consideration, because it aims to preserve our natural resources
resources for PLA are easily accesible