IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i22p12692-d680612.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Increasing the Environmental Sustainability of an Over-Injection Line for the Automotive Component Industry

Author

Listed:
  • Alexandre L. N. Vieira

    (School of Engineering, Polytechnic of Porto, ISEP, 4249-015 Porto, Portugal)

  • Raul D. S. G. Campilho

    (School of Engineering, Polytechnic of Porto, ISEP, 4249-015 Porto, Portugal
    INEGI—Instituto de Ciência e Inovação em Engenharia Mecânica e Engenharia Industrial, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal)

  • Francisco J. G. Silva

    (School of Engineering, Polytechnic of Porto, ISEP, 4249-015 Porto, Portugal
    INEGI—Instituto de Ciência e Inovação em Engenharia Mecânica e Engenharia Industrial, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal)

  • Luís P. Ferreira

    (School of Engineering, Polytechnic of Porto, ISEP, 4249-015 Porto, Portugal
    INEGI—Instituto de Ciência e Inovação em Engenharia Mecânica e Engenharia Industrial, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal)

Abstract

Thermoplastic injection is currently employed in different industrial fields. This process has significantly evolved over the years, and injection machine manufacturers are continuously forced to innovate, to improve the energetic efficiency, aiming to reduce costs, improve competitiveness, and promote environmental sustainability. This work focuses on the development of a novel, profitable, and environmentally friendly plastic over-injection equipment of small metallic parts for the automotive industry, to be applied in a bowden cable production line, to cover the zamak terminations with plastic, or produce terminations entirely made of plastic. The work is based on an over-sized existing solution. The operating parameters required for the work are quantified, and all machine parts are designed separately to achieve the required functionality. Known approaches are finally used to perform the cost analysis, calculate the return on investment (ROI), and energetic efficiency, to substantiate the replacement of the current solution. The new equipment was able to increase the energetic efficiency of the current assembly line while keeping the required injection rates. An efficient and sustainable solution was presented, with a ROI of 1.2 years over the current solution. The proposed design is also applicable to different automated production lines that require this technology. Nowadays, this concept can be extended to all fields of industry that employ injection molding in their processes, enabling to integrate new manufacturing systems, and increasing energetic efficiency while reducing production costs.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexandre L. N. Vieira & Raul D. S. G. Campilho & Francisco J. G. Silva & Luís P. Ferreira, 2021. "Increasing the Environmental Sustainability of an Over-Injection Line for the Automotive Component Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-21, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:22:p:12692-:d:680612
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/22/12692/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/22/12692/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Emmanuel Ugo Enemuoh & Venkata Gireesh Menta & Abdulaziz Abutunis & Sean O’Brien & Labiba Imtiaz Kaya & John Rapinac, 2021. "Energy and Eco-Impact Evaluation of Fused Deposition Modeling and Injection Molding of Polylactic Acid," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-15, February.
    2. Elham Sharifi & Atanu Chaudhuri & Brian Vejrum Waehrens & Lasse Guldborg Staal & Saeed Davoudabadi Farahani, 2021. "Assessing the Suitability of Freeform Injection Molding for Low Volume Injection Molded Parts: A Design Science Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-19, January.
    3. Ana Elduque & Carlos Javierre & Daniel Elduque & Ángel Fernández, 2015. "LCI Databases Sensitivity Analysis of the Environmental Impact of the Injection Molding Process," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-9, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Francisco José Gomes Silva & Konstantinos Kirytopoulos & Luis Pinto Ferreira & José Carlos Sá & Gilberto Santos & Maria Carolina Cancela Nogueira, 2022. "The three pillars of sustainability and agile project management: How do they influence each other," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(5), pages 1495-1512, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. José Eduardo Galve & Daniel Elduque & Carmelo Pina & Carlos Javierre, 2016. "Sustainable Supply Chain Management: The Influence of Disposal Scenarios on the Environmental Impact of a 2400 L Waste Container," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(6), pages 1-12, June.
    2. David O. Kazmer & Davide Masato & Leonardo Piccolo & Kyle Puleo & Joshua Krantz & Varun Venoor & Austin Colon & Justin Limkaichong & Neil Dewar & Denis Babin & Cheryl Sayer, 2021. "Multivariate Modeling of Mechanical Properties for Hot Runner Molded Bioplastics and a Recycled Polypropylene Blend," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-23, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:22:p:12692-:d:680612. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.