Abstract
Global concerns on environmental and health issues have led us to the development of environmentally conscious technologies in the related academia and industries incorporating national and international research collaboration. Government laws and international regulations for reducing pollution such as the carbon dioxide and toxic waste increase production costs and impose international trade barriers, which accelerates global competition in industry. Knowledge and understanding on the environmentally conscious technologies, including eco-friendly manufacturing and design of products, renewable energy and energy harvesting, high-efficiency energy conversion, as well as marketing strategies, will allow us to provide sustainable solutions to overcome the barriers and possess international competitive power. This Special Issue aims to gather experts and scholars from related fields to present and share their recent research on environmentally conscious technologies in mechanical engineering field. Only nine articles out of 29 submitted articles were successful in meeting the expectations of the blind review process and have been selected for inclusion in this Special Issue after revisions based on reviewer feedbacks and further revisions:
Jose Antonio Dieste, Ángel Fernández, Carlos Javierre, and Jorge Santolaria in their article “Environmentally Conscious polishing system based on robotics and artificial vision” propose a novel polishing system based on robotics and artificial vision. The application of this system allows reducing the failed parts due to finishing process down to 0% from 28% of rejected parts with manual polishing process. The reduction in process time consumption, and amount of scrapped parts, reduces the energy consumption up to 30% in finishing process and 20% in whole manufacturing process for an injection molded aluminum part for automotive industry with high production volumes.
Daniel Elduque, Isabel Clavería, Ángel Fernándeza, Carlos Javierre, Carmelo Pina, and Jorge Santolaria in their article “Analysis of the influence of microcellular injection molding on the environmental impact of an industrial component” present a study of the environmental behavior of a manufactured component both by conventional injection molding and by microcellular injection molding. Environmental impact is evaluated performing a Life Cycle Assessment. Functionality of the component is also evaluated using manufactured samples to make sure that the mechanical requirements are fulfilled when using the microcellular injection molding.
Victor Peinado, Lidia García, Ángel Fernández, and Pere Castell in their article “Light weight medium-sized parts made of foamed HDPE processed via extrusion-blow moulding” present the study on the manufacturing of medium-sized hollow parts using a foamed high-density polyethylene using a conventional accumulator blow extrusion machine and a systematic capture of pictures during the parison formation. In order to fully monitor the critical extrusion process of the parison formation, several experiments are carried out by varying not only the chemical foaming agent content from 0 wt% to 2 wt% on steps of 0.5 wt% but also increasing the push extrusion speed.
Wan Sun, Jeehyun Jung, Xiao Yu Wang, Pilkee Kim, Jongwon Seok, and Duk-young Jang in their article “Design, simulation, and optimization of a frequency-tunable vibration energy harvester that uses a magneto-rheological elastomer” present the study focused on the design, simulation, and load-power optimization for the development of a novel frequency-tunable electromagnetic vibrational energy harvester. The unique characteristic of a magneto-rheological elastomer (MRE) is utilized and the tuning of the resonant frequency is achieved by changing the gap distance between two tuning magnets. The optimal load resistances under various resonance frequencies are also found, for the design and composition of the optimal energy harvesting circuit of the energy harvester system.
Nesrin Adiguzel, Ömer Çomakli, Ismail Ekmekci, and Saban Pusat in their article “Economical evaluation of a cogeneration system for a building complex” investigate the suitability of using cogeneration system for the Aktürk Building Complex (located in Istanbul) using electricity and heat consumption data by considering five different cogeneration system capacities (800, 1200, 1400, 2000, and 2600 kW). The different capacities are compared using data of the payback period of the investment, the amount of net savings, ratio of meeting demand, and part load efficiency for cogeneration system.
Seung Hyun Jeong, Jae Chung Heo, and Gil Ho Yoon in their article “Motionstructural optimization strategy for rhombic element based foldable structure” present a new systematical design approach of foldable structure composed of several rhombic elements by applying Genetic Algorithm. They present an optimization formulation minimizing the sum of distances between each reference joints of an arbitrary shaped target area and its closest outer joints of foldable structure. To find out the outer joint set of a given foldable structure, an efficient geometric analysis method based on Delaunay triangulation is also developed and implemented.
Bin Huang, Heung Soo Kim, and Gil Ho Yoon in their article “Investigation of actuator debonding effects on active control in smart composite laminates” present a numerical study of active vibration control of smart composite laminates in the presence of actuator debonding failures. A comparison between the smart composite laminates with healthy actuator and various partially debonded actuator cases is performed to investigate the debonding effects on the vibration suppression. The improved layerwise theory with Heaviside unit step function is adopted to model the displacement field with actuator debonding failure.
Sooyoung Lee, Duk-young Jang, Xiao Yu Wang, Pilkee Kim, Wan Sun, and Jongwon Seok in their article “Lubrication characteristics of a textured porous sliding bearing” investigate the lubrication characteristics of a textured bearing sliding on a porous layer. To properly implement the porous layer effect in the bearing, the Brinkman extended-Darcy model is employed, which results in a modified Reynolds equation. This equation is then evaluated to examine the effects of the porous layer’s material and geometric properties on the lubrication characteristics through the use of (semi-)analytic and numerical approaches. Along with the variation trends of the bearing performance with respect to the material and geometric properties of the porous layer, the pattern effects of textured surfaces on the bearing performance indices (load capacity and equivalent friction coefficient) are also thoroughly investigated.
Marco Bertoni, Sophie Hallstedt, and Ola Isaksson in their article “A model-based approach for sustainability and value assessment in the aerospace value chain” address the problem of bringing the important—yet typically high level and complex—sustainability aspects into engineering practices. This article proposes a novel integrated model-based method that provides a consistent way of addressing the well-known lack of generic and integrated ways of clarifying both cost and value consequences of sustainability in early phases. It further presents the development and implementation of such approach in two separate case studies conducted in collaboration with a major aero-engine sub-system manufacturer.
The guest editors are especially grateful to the authors who submitted their articles to this Special Issue. We would like to express their sincere gratitude to all the reviewers invited from various countries for their careful reviews and valuable suggestions that improved the quality of the final versions. We thank the Editorial Staff of the Advances in Mechanical Engineering for the exceptional effort they did throughout this process. We hope that the articles selected in this special issue will become useful resources for researchers and practitioners in these areas.