Design for Optimal End-of-Life Scenario Via Product-Embedded Disassembly

Abstract

This paper presents a computational method for designing products with a built-in disassembly means that can be triggered by the removal of one or a few fasteners at the end of the product lives. Given component geometries, the method simultaneously determines the spatial configuration of components, locators and fasteners, and the end-of-life (EOL) treatments of components and subassemblies, such that the product can be disassembled for the maxim profit and minimum environmental impact through recycling and reuse via domino-like self-disassembly" process. As an extension of our previous work, the present method incorporates EOL treatments of disassembled components and subassemblies as additional decision variables, and the Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) focusing on EOL treatments as a means to evaluate environmental impacts. A multi-objective genetic algorithm is utilized to search for Pareto optimal designs in terms of 1) satisfaction of the distance specification among components, 2) efficient use of locators on components, 3) profit of EOL scenario, and 4) environmental impact of EOL scenario. The method is applied to a simplified model of Power Mac G4 cube¨ for demonstration.