Sustainable lightweight vehicle design: A case study of eco-material selection for body-in-white

Abstract

Sustainable product development when applied to an automotive structure requires a balanced approach towards technological, economic and ecological aspects. Current paper investigates the main input parameters and the different measures for the vehicular structures design for sustainability (DFS) in general and its material selection for sustainable lightweight design in particular. This study proposes a set of metrics for material selection that takes all sustainability aspects into consideration. These metrics include: products' environmental impact, functionality and manufacturability, in addition to the economic and societal factors. The manuscript then proceeds to show the material selection methodology and its limitations. Copyright © 2012 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.