Date of Award
2013
Publication Type
Master Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.Sc.
Department
Mechanical, Automotive, and Materials Engineering
Keywords
Automotive engineering, sustainability, Environmental engineering
Supervisor
Edwin Tam
Supervisor
Andrzej Sobieslak
Rights
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Abstract
The objective of this research is to evaluate the environmental performance of polylactic acid (PLA) + flax fiber bio-composite against the current in production composite of polypropylene (PP) + wood dust via life cycle analysis (LCA). The system boundary is an extended gate-to-gate LCA that includes the materials production process. In order to complete the LCA set forth, a necessary iterative process of dataset matching was done to convert NatureWorks LLC's Ingeo (PLA) dataset from the USLCI database to the GaBi database in order to model the LCA conducted. The bio-composite of PLA + flax produces less greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming potentials (GWP) largely due to the carbon sequestration of corn production. The current in production composite of PP + wood dust contributes less to both acidification potential (AP) of seawater and photochemical ozone creation potential (POCP) largely due to less agricultural processes. The polymer resin production process is the primary parameter for energy consumption in both composites.
Recommended Citation
Tseng, Simon Che Wen, "Using bio-based materials in the automotive industry" (2013). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 4755.
https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/4755