The technical potential for reducing metal requirements through lightweight product design

Carruth, Mark A.; Allwood, Julian M.; Moynihan, Muiris C.

doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2011.09.018

Cited by 71 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…This is affirmed by other studies which show ways for even less material to be used: Carruth et al [18] demonstrate that an optimized, varying cross-section beam could have 30% less mass than a standard beam; Chan's [19] optimization method reduces steel mass of a 60-storey building by 3.5%, while Liang et al [20] presents a performance-based topology optimization method to minimize the mass of structural bracing systems.…”

Section: Review Of Previously Published Literaturementioning

confidence: 90%

Utilization of structural steel in buildings

2014

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Over one-quarter of steel produced annually is used in the construction of buildings. Making this steel causes carbon dioxide emissions, which climate change experts recommend be reduced by half in the next 37 years. One option to achieve this is to design and build more efficiently, still delivering the same service from buildings but using less steel to do so. To estimate how much steel could be saved from this option, 23 steel-framed building designs are studied, sourced from leading UK engineering firms. The utilization of each beam is found and buildings are analysed to find patterns. The results for over 10 000 beams show that average utilization is below 50% of their capacity. The primary reason for this low value is ‘rationalization’—providing extra material to reduce labour costs. By designing for minimum material rather than minimum cost, steel use in buildings could be drastically reduced, leading to an equivalent reduction in ‘embodied’ carbon emissions.

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Section: Review Of Previously Published Literaturementioning

confidence: 90%

Utilization of structural steel in buildings

2014

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“…The White Paper identified four broad strategies for implementing material efficiency, expanded to six here [12]: -Light-weight design: Carruth et al [25] derive a set of technical principles for designing light-weight products, and then test them on five commercial case studies, with detailed evaluation within the current supply chain. Their evidence suggests that, on average, one-third of all material use could be saved if product designs were optimized for material use rather than for cost reduction, because downstream production (and design) costs are generally dominated by labour and not materials.…”

Section: Technical Options For Implementing Materials Efficiencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Material efficiency: providing material services with less material production

Allwood

Ashby

Gutowski

et al. 2013

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

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Material efficiency, as discussed in this Meeting Issue, entails the pursuit of the technical strategies, business models, consumer preferences and policy instruments that would lead to a substantial reduction in the production of high-volume energy-intensive materials required to deliver human well-being. This paper, which introduces a Discussion Meeting Issue on the topic of material efficiency, aims to give an overview of current thinking on the topic, spanning environmental, engineering, economics, sociology and policy issues. The motivations for material efficiency include reducing energy demand, reducing the emissions and other environmental impacts of industry, and increasing national resource security. There are many technical strategies that might bring it about, and these could mainly be implemented today if preferred by customers or producers. However, current economic structures favour the substitution of material for labour, and consumer preferences for material consumption appear to continue even beyond the point at which increased consumption provides any increase in well-being. Therefore, policy will be required to stimulate material efficiency. A theoretically ideal policy measure, such as a carbon price, would internalize the externality of emissions associated with material production, and thus motivate change directly. However, implementation of such a measure has proved elusive, and instead the adjustment of existing government purchasing policies or existing regulations— for instance to do with building design, planning or vehicle standards—is likely to have a more immediate effect.

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“…In addition to the mere substitution of conventional materials by typical lightweight ones such as aluminium and magnesium alloys, high-strength steels, and plastics, also the component design offers enormous weight saving potential [7][8][9]. A brief review of weight reduction via adapted part design starting from early and more theoretical approaches [10] up to current work [11] can be found in reference [12].…”

Section: State Of the Art 21 Lightweight Constructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structuring by electromagnetic forming and by forming with an elastomer punch as a tool for component optimisation regarding mechanical stiffness and acoustic performance

et al. 2015

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-Ecological and economic reasons are forcing industry to improve efficiency and to save energy and resources. Especially for the automotive and transport industry -but also for all other industrial branches dealing with accelerated masses -lightweight design is a key issue for achieving this goal. In current product designs, insufficient geometric stiffness of the part often prohibits exploiting the full potential of weight reduction offered by modern materials. Ideally adapting the geometry to the load profile by implementing appropriate structures frequently allows wall thickness and weight reduction. At the same time, the acoustic properties can be improved in many cases, because the natural frequency of the modified structure is higher compared to a conventionally-designed structure, thus leading to a reduction of awkward low frequency noise (humming). To enable a target-oriented design, the influence of structures manufactured by elastomer tools and by electromagnetic forming (EMF) was analysed systematically. Knowledge about the influence of the structuring technology and the process parameters on the resulting structure properties and the part performance allows conclusions regarding the optimisation of the part functionality via a suitable selection and design of the process.

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The technical potential for reducing metal requirements through lightweight product design

Cited by 71 publications

References 13 publications

Utilization of structural steel in buildings

Utilization of structural steel in buildings

Material efficiency: providing material services with less material production

Structuring by electromagnetic forming and by forming with an elastomer punch as a tool for component optimisation regarding mechanical stiffness and acoustic performance

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