Disposal and Recycle Economic Assessment for Aircraft and Engine End of Life Solution Evaluation
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
applied sciences Article Disposal and Recycle Economic Assessment for Aircraft and Engine End of Life Solution Evaluation Xiaojia Zhao 1,*, Wim J.C. Verhagen 2 and Richard Curran 3 1 School of Power and Energy, Aerospace Propulsion, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China 2 School of Engineering, Aerospace Engineering and Aviation, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3053, Australia 3 Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Air Transport and Operations, Delft University of Technology, 2629 HS Delft, The Netherlands * Correspondence: [email protected] Received: 12 November 2019; Accepted: 30 December 2019; Published: 10 January 2020 Featured Application: Authors are encouraged to provide a concise description of the specific application or a potential application of the work. This section is not mandatory. Abstract: The present study proposes an economic indicator to support the evaluation of aircraft End of Life (EoL) strategies in view of the increasing demand with regards to aircraft decommissioning. This indicator can be used to evaluate the economic performance and to facilitate the trade-off studies among different strategies. First, Disposal and Recycle (D&R) scenarios related to stakeholders are investigated to identify the core concepts for the economic evaluation. Next, we extracted the aircraft D&R process from various real-life practices. In order to obtain the economic measure for the engineering process, a method of estimating the D&R cost and values are developed by integrating product, process and cost properties. This analysis is demonstrated on an averaged data set and two EoL aircraft cases. In addition, sensitivity analysis is performed to evaluate the impact of the D&R cost, residual value, and salvage value. Results show that the disassembly and dismantling of an aircraft engine possesses relatively more economic gains than that for the aircraft. The main factors influencing the proposed D&R economic indicator are the salvage value and D&R cost for economically efficient D&R cases. In addition, delaying the disposal and recycle process for EoL aircraft can lead to economically unfavorable solutions. The economic indicator combined with the evaluation methods is widely applicable for evaluations of engineering products EoL solutions, and implies a significant contribution of this research to decision making for such complex systems in terms sustainable policy. Keywords: aircraft disposal and recycle process; End of Life (EoL); aircraft and aircraft engine Life Cycle Analysis (LCA); engineering cost and value analysis; disposal and recycle economic indicator 1. Introduction Within the current commercial aviation industry, more than 8500 aircraft have been retired, and it is expected that around 6600 aircraft will reach their End of Life (EoL) in the next decade [1,2]. This has led to the required development of economic efficient aircraft Disposal and Recycle (D&R) strategies. Figure1 illustrates a disposal and recycle sites for EoL aircraft (a) disassembly and (b) dismantling operations. Appl. Sci. 2020, 10, 522; doi:10.3390/app10020522 www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci Appl. Sci. 2020, 10, 522 2 of 24 Appl. Sci. 2020, 10, x FOR PEER REVIEW 2 of 23 (a) disassembly (b) dismantling Figure 1. Aircraft disposal and recycle (picture source: courtesy of Aircraft End-of-LifeEnd-of-Life Solutions (AELS)(AELS) Company).Company). SignificantSignificant savings can be identified identified by comparing the labor, material, and energy consumption generated from the D&R processes and that for new productions, i.e., where the D&R processes recycle old components and offer offer recovered materials, while manufacturing processes produce new components and is concernedconcerned with virgin materials. It is found that the cost of manufacturing virgin carbon fiberfiber is aroundaround 15–30$15–30 USD USD per per pound pound in in 2011, 2011, while while only only 8–12 $8– USD12 US perD per pound pound is needed is needed via recyclingvia recycling [3]. Recycling[3]. Recycling aluminum aluminum material material from from scrap scrap can save can up save to 95%up to energy, 95% energy, and the and D&R the process D&R ofprocess producing of producing recovered recovered aluminum aluminum metal can metal reduce can 39% reduce energy 39% consumption energy consumption [4]. Airbus’ [4] PAMELA. Airbus’ (ProcessPAMELA for (Process Advanced for ManagementAdvanced Management of End of Life of Aircraft) End of project, Life Aircraft) in 2005, hasproject demonstrated, in 2005, thathas arounddemonstrated 85% weight that around recovery 85% can weight be achieved recovery by can recycling be achieved an A300 by recycling aircraft. Rolls-Royce an A300 aircraft. can recycle Rolls- asRoyce much can as recycle 75% aero as enginemuch as metal 75% byaero aerospace engine metal smelters by [aerospace5,6]. This issmelters the main [5,6] reason. This for is the D&Rmain processreason for to remainthe D&R competitive process to in remain the aviation competitive market, andin the the aviation D&R process market, is also and related the D&R to the process original is designalso related via the to material the original choice design and component via the recyclabilitymaterial choice and and recoverability component [7 ].recyclability The aircraft EoLand solutionrecoverability is associated [7]. The with aircraft the EoL aircraft solution status is based associated on its with operating the air andcraft maintenance status based condition on its operating before parkingand maintenance and storing. condition The D&R before process parking also and involves storing. engineering The D&R process processes, also involves such as dismantling,engineering sorting,processes and, such component as dismantling, management. sorting, Based and component on the aforementioned management. properties, Based on itthe clearly aforementioned indicates a transdisciplinaryproperties, it clearly character indicates [8]. a A transdisciplinary deep understanding character of the [8] aircraft. A deep D&R understanding process could of improve the aircraft the productD&R process EoL solutions,could improve and at th thee sameproduct time EoL will, solutions, in practice, and strengthen at the same its lifetime cycle will performance., in practice, Studiesstrengthen associated its life withcycle the performance. disassembly sequenceStudies associated and its effi ciencywith the have disassembly proven to support sequence the productand its developmentefficiency have process proven [9,10 to]. However,support the aircraft product economics, development company process economics, [9,10] and. However global economics, aircraft alleconomics, often restrict company the aircraft economics, EoL solution and global [7]. Dueeconomics to the small all often industry restrict size the for aircraft the aircraft EoL solution dismantling [7]. andDue recycling,to the small comparatively industry size littlefor the study aircraft has dismantling been carried and out recycling, to analyze comparatively the D&R process little and study its economichas been carried performance. out to Alonganalyze with the the D&R growth process of the and industry, its economic it becomes performance. necessary toAlong perform with those the analysesgrowth of quantitatively. the industry, it becomes necessary to perform those analyses quantitatively. Literature shows shows that that aircraft aircraft disposal disposal cost cost is isaround around 10% 10% of the of thepurchase purchase price price or 1% or of 1% the of total the totalLife Cycle Life Cycle Cost Cost(LCC) (LCC) [11,12] [11, 12although], although those those rough rough estimates estimates could could not not provide provide a a guideline guideline on determining whether a D&R strategy is economic and eefficient.fficient. T Thehe D&R cost and value analysis for commercial aircraftaircraft are are potentially potentially an e ffectivean effective means formeans evaluating for evaluating this process relatedthis process fundamentally related tofundamentally sustainability. to sustainability. It is very necessary It is very to necessary provide a to standard provide ina standard order to in evaluate order to the evaluate economic the performanceeconomic performance of an EoL of solution; an EoL therefore,solution; therefore, there is a needthere foris a anneed economic for an economic indicator indicator for this purpose. for this Combiningpurpose. Combining the economic the indicatoreconomic with indicator the environmental with the environmental and societal and measures societal of themeasures aircraft of D&R the processaircraft D&R would process strengthen would the strengthe process ofn the aircraft process sustainability of aircraft evaluationsustainability and evaluation improve the and aircraft improve life cyclethe aircraft performance. life cycle performance. This paper is constructed as follows: First, l literatureiterature is reviewed thoroughly for both macro and micro levelslevels ofof aircraft aircraft disposal disposal and and recycle recycle analysis. analysis. Based Based on historicalon historical aircraft aircraft EoL projects,EoL projects, the D&R the scenariosD&R scenarios and its and process its process model aremodel constructed. are constructed. Detailed methodologyDetailed methodology for cost and for value cost evaluationsand value isevaluations developed, is followed developed, by thefollowed D&R economicby the D&R indicator, economic which indicator, is the first which time is athe proposal first time for a proposal standard for