António Gonçalves-Coelho

Sustainability and a circular economy (CE) are crucial for the development of society. The CE approach should start by designing new products or processes or retrofitting existing ones to achieve the best efficiency and extend their life cycle. Designs that enable CE require the guidance of a design theory. Axiomatic design (AD) theory allows for the classification of designs and achieving the targets if appropriate requirements are adopted. This paper aimed to show that sustainability and productivity can be made compatible by ensuring functional independence, as defined in AD and using the circular economy concept. The paper presents how a salt washing machine could be improved concerning its performance. The analysis of the existing design showed fewer design parameters than the functional requirements. A viable enhancement was the addition of one design parameter, which made it possible to control the separation and washing independently. The resulting machine retrofitting increased the production rate by 20% to 30%—the productivity and the quality of the final product was also improved. The washing process now used less water and energy. Moreover, the brine feeding system was also redesigned, so that the brine was now reused, the land use was reduced as was the operating time, and the operators now worked in a more friendly environment. The industrial case study presented in this paper is an example of how innovative engineering design that fits the design science research (DSR) with the generation of knowledge. The objective of this design solution was to increase the efficiency of the entire process and consequently increase the productivity and sustainability.

Cooperation arrangements in the form of buyer–supplier dyads are a way that companies have found to deal with the current competitive environment. Despite the contributions in the interoperability literature, a cohesive framework is lacking that would allow the systematization of solutions for interoperable problems in such cooperation. Therefore, we propose a framework for systematically detail interoperability issues and to provide solutions that fit business conditions.Through a case study conducted on an automotive dyad, it is possible to achieve a better interoperable scenario, by systematically addressing the issues and providing solutions that comply with the AD independence axiom.

The Newcomen engine (1705) and the Watt engine (1769) are good examples of coupled and uncoupled designs. The Watt engine had an efficiency of about 3%, a shallow value when compared to engines of nowadays while resulting in a significant increase at those times. According to Axiomatic Design, Watt engine had a better performance than the Newcomen design due to its uncoupled nature. This work aims at applying the same reasoning to choose between new inventions designed for recovering waste heat from engines as to produce work. The most popular of those inventions are the organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and the Kalina cycle. Marine applications use those inventions to improve the efficiency of Diesel engines because the increase of weight of the recovery system does not affect power propulsion. A controversial regarding what system to develop occurred in scientific community as well as in the industry. The application of AD to those cycles classifies ORC as an uncoupled design and the Kalina cycle as a coupled design. Therefore, the ORC might be pondered for future development regarding energy efficiency.

MATEC Web of Conferences, open access proceedings in Materials science, Engineering and Chemistry

MATEC Web of Conferences, open access proceedings in Materials science, Engineering and Chemistry

MATEC Web of Conferences, open access proceedings in Materials science, Engineering and Chemistry