ADVANCE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES

LIFE CYCLE
ASSESMENT
Advance Manufacturing Processes Life Cycle Assessment

1) What is life cycle assessment with examples?

In Life Cycle Assessment (Life Cycle Analysis) the potential impacts of a service or product
(production, distribution, use and end-of-life phases) on the environment are evaluated throughout
their entire life cycle. This involves the upstream (e.g., suppliers) and downstream (e.g., waste
management) processes that are associated with the

• production (e.g., production of raw, auxiliary and operating materials),

• use phase, and
• disposal (e.g., waste incineration). [1]
2) Where is LCA utilized?

Life cycle assessment can be linked with sustainability and the latter in general has four pillars
namely:

• Environment
• Social
• Economic
• Technology

In light of united nations goals for sustainable development, manufacturing based activities
contribute towards environment, social, economic and technology and need to be taken into
quantitative assessment. However, the very popular LCA proves to be a very resourceful method
used to investigate the potential "environmental" impacts throughout the life cycle of a product or
service during:
1. Extraction and processing of raw materials
2. Manufacturing the product
3. Transportation and distribution of the product
4. Use and re-use
5. The maintenance of the product and its recycling
6. Final disposal

LCA evaluates the environmental burdens associated with the above across multitude of industries
by identifying and quantifying energy and materials used and wastes released to the environment;

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Advance Manufacturing Processes Life Cycle Assessment

to assess the impact of those energy and materials used and releases to the environment; and to
identify and evaluate opportunities to affect environmental improvements.[2]

3) Carrying out lifecycle assessment:

LCA comprises of four linked components in Fig. 1:

Goal defination Life Cycle Improvment

Impact Analysis
and scoping Inventory analysis

• Identification of Evaluating impacts Evaluating the

LCA's purpose • Quantification of on environment and
and expected enengy and raw chances of
human health
products material inputs (associated with reducing energy,
• Determination • Environmental energy and raw raw material and
of boundaries releases (at each materials environmental
• Assumptions stage of quantification and
production) environmental impacts at each
based upon the
goal definition releases by inventory) stage of product
life cycle
Fig. 1. LCA components

4) life cycle impact assessment and approach

As per ISO 14040 standard, the third phase of LCA is the LCIA (Life cycle impact assessment),
before the interpretation phase and after the goal and scope definition and the inventory analysis.
From the life cycle inventory, LCIA aims to translate elementary flows such as water, ores, land
use, crude oil etc. also, emissions into air, soil and water such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen
oxides into their likely contributions to environmental impacts being considered in analysis. Thus,
provides backing to the interpretation phase answering questions in goal definition.

LCIA consists of five steps as per ISO 14040 standard, as shown in Fig. 2:

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Advance Manufacturing Processes Life Cycle Assessment

Fig. 2 The five steps of life cycle impact assessment [4]

5) Characterization Principles
Characterization modelling has principles and General conditions as follows:
i. Characterization Framework: Characterization factors are calculated using
Characterization models and relate or translate the elementary flow into its impact on
the chosen indicator for the impact category. CF = FF XF EF : Characterization factors
(CF) fate factor (FF), exposure factor (XF) effect factor (EF) are applied with some
modifications in most of the emission-related impact categories, with contents, metrics
and meanings of the three factors that vary according to the impact category.
ii. Impact Scores: application is relatively straightforward and characterization factors
are expressed per unit of the elementary flow ISj,i,k,l = Qi,k,l CFj,i,k,l ,
Where, ISj,i,k,l is the contribution from elementary flow I, extracted at location k, or
emitted to environmental compartment l, at location k to the indicator score for
impact category j

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Advance Manufacturing Processes Life Cycle Assessment

Qi,k,l is the quantity of elementary flow I, extracted at location k or emitted to

compartment l at location k (from the inventory)
CFj,i,k,l is the Characterization factor under impact category j for elementary flow is
extracted at location k or emitted to compartment l at location k
iii. Midpoint Versus Endpoint Indicators: As per ISO 14044, chosen to represent an
impact category can be located wherever along the impact pathway, to represent an
impact category, and links the damage cause on the AoPs by inventory data through
consecutive environmental impacts. Midpoint indicators ideally located at the point
after which the mechanism is identical for all flows assigned to that impact category,
somewhere along the impact pathway, with this location of the midpoint indicator, the
flows will have different midpoint Characterization factors, while their mid-to-
endpoint Characterization factor is the same. Characterization at the endpoint level
requires modelling of the whole impact pathway to the point where the impacted
entities are the areas of protection. Endpoint Characterization modelling is sometimes
also referred to as ‘damage modelling’. The two approaches are complementary in that
the midpoint Characterization has a stronger relation to the elementary flows and a
lower modelling uncertainty, while the endpoint Characterization has a stronger
relation to the areas of protection and hence a better information on the environmental
relevance of the characterized flows.[4]

Remaining are the Potential Impacts, Best Estimates, Spatial Differentiation, Linear,
Average or Marginal Modelling, Uncertainty.

6) List of databases: -

• The U.S. Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) Database serves as a central repository for information
about the total energy and resource impacts of developing and using various commercial building
materials, components, and assemblies.
• The “ecoinvent” database is the world's leading LCI database which delivers both in terms of
transparency and consistency. The ecoinvent database provides well documented process data for
thousands of products, helping you make truly informed choices about their environmental impact.
• Agri-footprint is a life cycle inventory (LCI) database for the agriculture and food sector. It
covers data on agricultural products: feed, food and biomass.

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Advance Manufacturing Processes Life Cycle Assessment

References

[1]. What is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)? - Sphera

[2] Life Cycle Assessment (gdrc.org)

[3] U.S. Life Cycle Inventory Database | NREL

[4] M.Z. Hauschild, M.A.J. Huijbregts (eds.), Life Cycle Impact Assessment, LCA
Compendium – The Complete World of Life Cycle Assessment, Springer Science+
Business Media Dordrecht 2015, Chapter 1 Introducing Life Cycle Impact Assessment

[5] ecoinvent

[6] Agri-footprint® | LCA food database (agri-footprint.com)