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Description
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) quantifies environmental impacts of products in raw material extraction, processing, manufacturing, distribution, use and final disposal. The findings of an LCA can be used to improve industry practices, to aid in product development, and guide public policy. Unfortunately, existing approaches to LCA are unreliable in the

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) quantifies environmental impacts of products in raw material extraction, processing, manufacturing, distribution, use and final disposal. The findings of an LCA can be used to improve industry practices, to aid in product development, and guide public policy. Unfortunately, existing approaches to LCA are unreliable in the cases of emerging technologies, where data is unavailable and rapid technological advances outstrip environmental knowledge. Previous studies have demonstrated several shortcomings to existing practices, including the masking of environmental impacts, the difficulty of selecting appropriate weight sets for multi-stakeholder problems, and difficulties in exploration of variability and uncertainty. In particular, there is an acute need for decision-driven interpretation methods that can guide decision makers towards making balanced, environmentally sound decisions in instances of high uncertainty. We propose the first major methodological innovation in LCA since early establishment of LCA as the analytical perspective of choice in problems of environmental management. We propose to couple stochastic multi-criteria decision analytic tools with existing approaches to inventory building and characterization to create a robust approach to comparative technology assessment in the context of high uncertainty, rapid technological change, and evolving stakeholder values. Namely, this study introduces a novel method known as Stochastic Multi-attribute Analysis for Life Cycle Impact Assessment (SMAA-LCIA) that uses internal normalization by means of outranking and exploration of feasible weight spaces.
ContributorsPrado, Valentina (Author) / Seager, Thomas P (Thesis advisor) / Landis, Amy E. (Committee member) / Chester, Mikhail (Committee member) / White, Philip (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
Natural rubber and rubber products can be produced from the guayule plant (Parthenium argentatum Gray), which is a low input perennial shrub native to Mexico and the American Southwest. Guayule rubber has the potential to replace Hevea (Hevea brasiliensis) rubber, the most common natural rubber, and synthetic rubber, which is

Natural rubber and rubber products can be produced from the guayule plant (Parthenium argentatum Gray), which is a low input perennial shrub native to Mexico and the American Southwest. Guayule rubber has the potential to replace Hevea (Hevea brasiliensis) rubber, the most common natural rubber, and synthetic rubber, which is derived from petroleum, in a wide variety of products, including automobile tires. Rubbers make up approximately 47% of the analyzed conventional passenger tire's weight, with 31% from synthetic rubber and 16% from natural Hevea rubber. Replacing the current rubber sources used for the tire industry with guayule rubber could help reduce dependency on imported rubber in addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, residues from guayule rubber are being researched as a bioenergy feedstock to further improve the environmental footprint of guayule rubber products. This study used life cycle assessment (LCA), a useful tool to determine environmental impacts from a product or process, to quantify and compare environmental impacts of the raw material extraction, transportation and manufacturing of a conventional and a guayule rubber based passenger tire. The impact results of this comparative LCA identified the major environmental impacts and contributing process and informed how the impacts from the tire production can be reduced through utilization of natural rubber co-products as electricity off-sets and reducing guayule rubber's environmental impacts through agricultural and transportation modifications. Results showed that tire raw material extraction contributed the majority of impacts in all categories, where the production of guayule rubber for guayule tires, and the production of synthetic rubber for conventional tires, were the main contributors. Guayule rubber impacts occurred mainly from electricity consumption for agricultural irrigation, while synthetic rubber is a petroleum-based material resulting in high impacts. Transportation impacts had little significance compared to other stages in the life cycle, except for smog impacts, which occurred mainly from truck transport for guayule tires, and transoceanic transport for conventional tires. Tire manufacturing impacts occurred mainly from electricity use in the facilities and were reduced with the use of guayule rubber in guayule tires.
ContributorsRasutis, Daina (Author) / Landis, Amy E. (Thesis advisor) / Colvin, Howard (Committee member) / Seager, Thomas P. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
Engineering education can provide students with the tools to address complex, multidisciplinary grand challenge problems in sustainable and global contexts. However, engineering education faces several challenges, including low diversity percentages, high attrition rates, and the need to better engage and prepare students for the role of a modern engineer. These

Engineering education can provide students with the tools to address complex, multidisciplinary grand challenge problems in sustainable and global contexts. However, engineering education faces several challenges, including low diversity percentages, high attrition rates, and the need to better engage and prepare students for the role of a modern engineer. These challenges can be addressed by integrating sustainability grand challenges into engineering curriculum.

Two main strategies have emerged for integrating sustainability grand challenges. In the stand-alone course method, engineering programs establish one or two distinct courses that address sustainability grand challenges in depth. In the module method, engineering programs integrate sustainability grand challenges throughout existing courses. Neither method has been assessed in the literature.

This thesis aimed to develop sustainability modules, to create methods for evaluating the modules’ effectiveness on student cognitive and affective outcomes, to create methods for evaluating students’ cumulative sustainability knowledge, and to evaluate the stand-alone course method to integrate sustainability grand challenges into engineering curricula via active and experiential learning.

The Sustainable Metrics Module for teaching sustainability concepts and engaging and motivating diverse sets of students revealed that the activity portion of the module had the greatest impact on learning outcome retention.

The Game Design Module addressed methods for assessing student mastery of course content with student-developed games indicated that using board game design improved student performance and increased student satisfaction.

Evaluation of senior design capstone projects via novel comprehensive rubric to assess sustainability learned over students’ curriculum revealed that students’ performance is primarily driven by their instructor’s expectations. The rubric provided a universal tool for assessing students’ sustainability knowledge and could also be applied to sustainability-focused projects.

With this in mind, engineering educators should pursue modules that connect sustainability grand challenges to engineering concepts, because student performance improves and students report higher satisfaction. Instructors should utilize pedagogies that engage diverse students and impact concept retention, such as active and experiential learning. When evaluating the impact of sustainability in the curriculum, innovative assessment methods should be employed to understand student mastery and application of course concepts and the impacts that topics and experiences have on student satisfaction.
ContributorsAntaya, Claire Louise (Author) / Landis, Amy E. (Thesis advisor) / Parrish, Kristen (Thesis advisor) / Bilec, Melissa M (Committee member) / Besterfield-Sacre, Mary E (Committee member) / Allenby, Braden R. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015