Lightweight Design Solutions in the Automotive Field: Environmental Modelling Based on Fuel Reduction Value Applied to Diesel Turbocharged Vehicles
Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Florence, Florence 50139, Italy
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Academic Editor: Bhavik Bakshi
Sustainability 2016, 8(11), 1167; https://doi.org/10.3390/su8111167
Received: 25 August 2016 / Revised: 28 October 2016 / Accepted: 7 November 2016 / Published: 11 November 2016
A tailored model for the assessment of environmental benefits achievable by “light-weighting” in the automotive field is presented. The model is based on the Fuel Reduction Value (FRV) coefficient, which expresses the Fuel Consumption (FC) saving involved by a 100 kg mass reduction. The work is composed of two main sections: simulation and environmental modelling. Simulation modelling performs an in-depth calculation of weight-induced FC whose outcome is the FRV evaluated for a wide range of Diesel Turbocharged (DT) vehicle case studies. Environmental modelling converts fuel saving to impact reduction basing on the FRVs obtained by simulations. Results show that for the considered case studies, FRV is within the range 0.115–0.143 and 0.142–0.388 L/100 km × 100 kg, respectively, for mass reduction only and powertrain adaptation (secondary effects). The implementation of FRVs within the environmental modelling represents the added value of the research and makes the model a valuable tool for application to real case studies of automotive lightweight LCA.
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Keywords:
automotive; fuel consumption; Fuel Reduction Value (FRV); Life Cycle Assessment (LCA); light-weighting; vehicle system dynamics
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MDPI and ACS Style
Delogu, M.; Del Pero, F.; Pierini, M. Lightweight Design Solutions in the Automotive Field: Environmental Modelling Based on Fuel Reduction Value Applied to Diesel Turbocharged Vehicles. Sustainability 2016, 8, 1167.
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