Comparative Study of Environmental Evaluation Assessment Using Exergetic LCA Implemented in Existing Software and a Novel Exergetic Approach during the Early Design Phase
Year: 2009
Editor: Norell Bergendahl, M.; Grimheden, M.; Leifer, L.; Skogstad, P.; Lindemann, U.
Author: Medyna, Galina; Coatanéa, Eric; Millet, Dominique
Series: ICED
Section: Product and Systems Design
Page(s): 275-286
Abstract
Current environmental evaluation analysis methods such as LCA require detailed information about the studied product or process. This leads to uncertain or wrong results when applied during the early design phase. As a result all the design choices must be made before performing such environmental analysis, consequently such methods are not truly design tools. The proposed exergetic approach offers an appropriate solution for an environmental evaluation during the early stages of the design process. A key aspect of this exergetic approach is a combination of a classical exergy and dimensional analysis. In previous works, the exergetic approach has been compared using LCA eco-indicator 99 (H), as the LCA method is a widely used and accepted method. This article aims at further validating the exergetic method by comparing it to the LCA exergetic method implemented in existing, widely spread, software. The comparison of the two approaches is done through a case study which is part of a project that is in the early design stage. This work is a part of the development of a tool that provides a model-based approach of the entire engineering design process.
Keywords: Exergy, environmental evaluation analysis, LCA, validation