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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Redefining Design for Remanufacturing: A Practical Methodology for Prioritizing Remanufacturing Design Rules

Products are often discarded when they fail or no longer meet user needs. These outcomes are frequently shaped by early design decisions. While remanufacturing offers a sustainable alternative by restoring products to like‐new condition, its potential is often limited by designs that do not consider remanufacturing from the outset. This research addresses that challenge by introducing a structured Design for Remanufacturing (DfRem) methodology and a CAD‐integrated tool to support real‐time design decisions. The DfRem framework introduces a new primary design function focused on preserving product functionality across its life cycle. It is supported by a fault tree that identifies failure modes that limit remanufacturing potential and a hierarchy of design principles including Prevent, Minimize, Relocate, Restore, and others. Each principle is linked to actionable design rules that help engineers reduce the need for remanufacturing or improve its efficiency when necessary. To operationalize this framework, we developed CAD plugins for Autodesk Inventor and PTC Creo. These tools use a state machine model to present prioritized design rules based on selected failure modes and user input. By embedding DfRem logic directly into widely used CAD environments, the tool enables engineers to make sustainability‐informed decisions without disrupting existing workflows. Furthermore, this approach highlights the critical role of design in enabling circular and resource‐efficient product development, making remanufacturing a more practical and accessible strategy during the early stages of product design.

CAD↗
DOE OSTI2021

Design for Remanufacturing

The objective of this project was to develop relationships between published scholarship, industry experience, and remanufacturing design rules and identify a clear path for integrating remanufacturing design rules into CAD tools and design practices. To accomplish this, remanufacturing knowledge was compiled, and then the relationships between this knowledge and a prioritized set of product design guidelines was developed. Next, a process to create rules out of guidelines was developed by first defining life extension as a primary function, and remanufacturing as effective tasks to control the failure modes that would restrict the product life. The reliability centered maintenance (RCM) process was used to identify proactive tasks and default actions to mitigate the effects of failure modes. These tasks were developed into expert system rules. The impact of design on remanufacturing was then validated through implementing a prioritized set of design rules for a Heavy Duty Off-Road (HDOR) techno-economic case study. Finally, detailed steps on how to define, develop, and integrate these rules into CAD were created.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2023

Reman Co-Design: A Combined Design and Remanufacturing Optimization Framework for the Sustainable Design of High-Value Components

Remanufacturing is a process that returns end-of-life equipment to as-new conditions and offers numerous environmental and economic benefits. To fully capitalize on remanufacturing, its synergistic interactions with design must be fully realized and addressed during the design stage. Although this fact is widely recognized in the literature, most of the current studies focus primarily either on the design or remanufacturing aspects of design for remanufacturing (DfRem). In an effort to offer a more integrated DfRem approach than those reported in the literature, we propose a new combined design and remanufacturing optimization (reman co-design) framework that takes a holistic approach by leveraging the intricate interplay between design and remanufacturing. Here, the aim of this formulation is to identify the optimal decisions that maximize the benefits of remanufacturing throughout the entire lifespan of a product. To showcase the utility of the new formulation, we are using a case study of a hydraulic manifold, (re)manufactured by John Deere. Using this industry example, we compare the results of reman co-design to the ones from a decoupled remanufacturing design approach. Results reveal that remanufacturing benefits are better realized and improved upon when using the developed reman co-design approach.

design for X↗
DOE OSTI2026

TRIZ-Based Design Improvement for Facilitating Transmission Control Unit Remanufacturing

Design for Remanufacturing (DfRem) centers on enhancing product design and operations to facilitate remanufacturing while increasing both economic and environmental sustainability. DfRem requires a comprehensive understanding of product characteristics, production conditions, and operational constraints. Thus, DfRem requires a systematic methodology to identify and implement alternative designs. Among many critical steps in remanufacturing, disassembly is essential because it directly supports remanufacturing by separation of product components for cleaning, inspection, and other subsequent process steps. This study proposes a TRIZ-based framework to improve product design for disassembly in support of remanufacturing. The framework is applied to a transmission control unit (TCU) case study. The current TCU design prevents remanufacturing due to the sealant-based component joinery, which complicates disassembly and risks damaging the printed circuit board (PCB). After defining technical contradictions for the TCU product design and reviewing the suggested TRIZ principles to solve the conflicts, a cantilever snap-fit design alternative is developed. The economic feasibility of the snap-fit design is assessed by comparing the current and snap-fit design costs for three life cycles. The cost analysis demonstrates that the cost of the snap-fit design remains the same as the current design. Additionally, the snap-fit design offers substantial cost savings for three life cycles compared to the current design. We demonstrate how snap-fit design supports both environmental and economic sustainability.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2025

A Design for Remanufacturing Framework Incorporating Identification, Evaluation, and Validation: A Case Study of Hydraulic Manifold

In recent years, academic researchers and engineers in the industry have widely recognized the necessity of integrating remanufacturing considerations into product design iterations to advance sustainability objectives. Acknowledging the importance of design for remanufacturing (DfRem), efforts were made to develop tools and guidelines that could be implemented in practice. However, such methods largely rely upon experiential insights and qualitative assessments, leaving a gap in the ability to quantitatively assess the economic and environmental impacts of design choices. To bridge this gap, we investigate existing efforts and present a framework for DfRem that integrates established design and remanufacturing practices into a cohesive workflow with quantitative assessments. To demonstrate its efficacy for making practical design changes for remanufacturing, we apply the framework to a hydraulic manifold in a transmission system for heavy-duty tractors. Through this industry-relevant case study, we focus on showcasing the practical utility of our framework. Based on the identified design modifications from remanufacturability analysis, we estimate the reductions in life cycle costs, energy consumption, and emissions. Afterward, the modifications are tested using physical experiments with plans for integration into future iterations of the hydraulic manifold design and production. Here, we anticipate this framework can illustrate the process of remanufacturing that ensures improvements in sustainability while maintaining performance and reliability standards.

design for X↗
DOE OSTI2021

Reliability-Informed Economic and Energy Evaluation for Design for Remanufacturing: A Case Study on a Hydraulic Manifold

Design for Remanufacturing (DfRem) is an attractive approach for sustainable product development. Evaluation of DfRem strategies, from both economic and environmental perspectives, at an early design stage can allow the designers to make informed decisions when choosing the best design option. Studying the long-term implications of a particular design scenario requires quantifying the benefits of remanufacturing for multiple life cycles while considering the reliability of the product. In addition to comparing designs on a one-to-one basis, we find that including reliability provides a different insight into comparing design strategies. We present a reliability-informed cost and energy analysis framework that accounts for product reliability for multiple remanufacturing cycles within a certain warranty policy. The variation of reuse rate over successive remanufacturing cycles is formulated using a branched power-law model which provides probabilistic scenarios of reusing or replacing with new units. To demonstrate the utility of this framework, we use the case study of a hydraulic manifold, which is a component of a transmission used in some agricultural equipment, and use real-world field reliability data to quantify the transmission’s reliability. Three design improvement changes are proposed for the manifold and we quantify the costs and energy consumption associated with each of the design changes for multiple remanufacturing cycles.

design for remanufacturing↗
DOE OSTI2024

Surrogate-assisted optimization under uncertainty for design for remanufacturing considering material price volatility

Remanufacturing is a well-established end-of-life (EOL) strategy that promises significant savings in energy and carbon emissions. However, the current design practices are not remanufacturing-inclusive, i.e., the majority of products are designed for a single life cycle. As a result, potential products that can sustain multiple life cycles are deprived of additional benefits of being designed for remanufacturing, such as reduced material usage, lower cost, and improved environmental impact. Moreover, the uncertainty in design, material selection, and economics are not considered to produce remanufacturable designs. Accordingly, this research proposes a design for remanufacturing (DfRem) framework that accounts for design uncertainty and material price volatility. The framework systematically explores the design space, performs design optimization under uncertainty, followed by topology optimization to provide additional mass savings, and finally, a price volatility analysis for plausible design material choices. The candidate designs are evaluated based on their design mass, material price volatility, failure mode characteristics, carbon footprint, and embodied energy impacts. The proposed framework's utility is demonstrated via the use of an engine cylinder head case study subjected to thermo-mechanical loads along with fatigue and wear failure. Considering grey cast iron and aluminum alloy as the design material choices, it was found that the cast iron design reduced the initial design mass by 6% as opposed to a 5% decrease for aluminum. On the other hand, about 8% area of the cast iron design failed due to fatigue, compared to 3% for aluminum. Here, we further observed that although the aluminum design provided better mechanical performance than the cast iron design, this material was more expensive and volatile in price.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Reliability-Informed Economic and Energy Evaluation for Bi-Level Design for Remanufacturing: A Case Study of Transmission and Hydraulic Manifold

Abstract Design for remanufacturing (DfRem) is one attractive strategy that encourages the reuse of a product and extends the product's life cycle. Traditional design processes often only consider product reliability at an early design stage. However, from the perspective of environmental sustainability, it is becoming increasingly important to evaluate the long-term economic and environmental impacts of design decisions during early-stage design. We propose a bi-level DfRem framework consisting of system-level reusability allocation and component-level design tradeoff analysis, considering reliability and product warranty policy. First, a system-level reusability allocation problem aims at a theoretical exploration of the design space where all the components comprising the system are allocated certain reuse rates to achieve target energy savings with minimum cost. Following the theoretical exploration at the system level, a component-level analysis looks at practical design options for each component and trades-off between the overall cost and energy consumption for multiple remanufacturing cycles. Both levels of the framework require modeling component reuse for multiple remanufacturing cycles, which we achieve by using a branched power-law model that provides probabilistic scenarios of reusing the component or replacing it with a new part. We demonstrate the utility of this framework with the case study of an infinitely variable transmission (IVT) used by some agricultural machines manufactured by John Deere and show snapshots of a prototype software tool that we developed for easy use by designers.

Engineering↗
DOE OSTI2026

A System-Level Cost Modeling Framework for Design for Remanufacturing: A Case Study of an Agricultural Machine Transmission

Remanufacturing offers significant environmental and economic benefits by restoring end-of-life products to as-new conditions. Although extensive research has been conducted on the topic, the adoption of remanufacturing practices remains limited across various industries. A primary barrier to broader implementation is the substantial upfront investment required, which necessitates reliable cost modeling to justify potential future savings. Most existing models treat components independently and ignore inter-component dependencies. We develop a probabilistic, system-level cost modeling framework that integrates reliability, reusability, and a dependency matrix to capture cascading effects across components over multiple life cycles. Our model identifies those critical components that maximize remanufacturing benefits across a product's many lives. A toy example and an industry case study (John Deere PowrQuad transmission subassembly) illustrate how design alternatives affect cumulative cost. Using a Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) to perform life cycle cost analysis on the system with different design changes, we show the normalized average cost savings after three remanufacturing cycles. Accounting for dependencies meaningfully alters cost projections and ignoring them underestimates accumulated cost by up to 20% in our examples. Furthermore, the results of our study confirm that accounting for component interdependencies is necessary to produce cost estimates that meet industry standards.

Life Cycle Analysis and Design↗
DOE OSTI2024

A novel design optimization framework to sustain remanufacturability

The ever-increasing global carbon emissions have urged the need for environmentally conscious/sustainable product design, for which the design for remanufacturing (DfRem) is one potential approach. DfRem targets at designing products that have multiple life cycles, thus significantly reducing raw material usage, energy consumption, and carbon emissions. In this paper, we develop a three-stage framework that consists of (1) systematic design space exploration and a multi-objective optimization formulation to minimize the likelihood of failure causes (such as fatigue and wear) and environmental footprint, (2) topology optimization to further reduce material usage without significantly affecting the load-carrying capability of the product, and (3) post-topology optimization design verification to ensure the proposed design satisfies all design constraints. The environmental impact can be assessed at varying comprehensiveness levels (e.g., design and manufacturing phase, use phase) and in terms of carbon or GHG emission, energy use, and waste generation. Because the novel design framework predominantly adjusted the geometry, we focused on mass-based change and energy savings due to sustained remanufacturability. The multi-objective optimization formulation in the first step results in a Pareto optimal set of possible design solutions that the designer can use for the second step. Finally, we demonstrate the utility of this framework through a case study of an engine cylinder head subjected to thermo-mechanical loads, where we find that about 5% of the product mass can be conserved with only about a 3% increase in surface area that has a fatigue life less than 10,000 cycles.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2023

A Machine Learning–Based Tire Life Prediction Framework for Increasing Life of Commercial Vehicle Tires

In the commercial freight industry, tire retreading decisions are often conservative due to limited knowledge of a tire’s remaining service life. This practice leads to increased costs and material waste. This paper proposes a machine learning–based approach for estimating tire casing life and retreadability, focusing on usage data rather than wear information. This approach could extend the tire’s lifespan and reduce landfill waste. Data integration from diverse tire casing measurement sources presents challenges, including imbalanced removal data. Our methodology addresses these challenges by using historical inspection, telematics, and finite element modeling (FEM) datasets. We introduce “Tire Casing Energy” as a comprehensive usage input and apply a Variance-Reduction Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique (VR-SMOTE) for data imbalance rectification. A random forest model is used to estimate the state of the tire casing and the casing removal probability, with Bayesian optimization applied for hyperparameter tuning, enhancing model accuracy. Here, the proposed prediction framework is able to differentiate different truck fleets and tire locations based on their usage parameters. With the aid of this machine learning model, the importance and sensitivity of different tire usage parameters can be obtained, which is beneficial to maximize tire life.

Data balancing↗
DOE OSTI2021

Reliability-Informed Life Cycle Warranty Cost and Life Cycle Analysis of Newly Manufactured and Remanufactured Units

Standard life cycle techniques such as life cycle warranty cost (LCWC) analysis and life cycle analysis (LCA) are used to respectively quantify the relative economical and environmental advantages of remanufactured goods while simultaneously identifying avenues for improvement. In this paper, we contribute to the literature on life cycle studies by incorporating reliability into LCWC analysis and LCA with the goal of improving long-term/multiple life cycle decision making. We develop a branched power-law model to incorporate the physical degradation mechanisms leading to reduced reuse rates of system parts over multiple life cycles. We then follow a standard LCA protocol to quantify the difference between a new unit and its remanufactured version in terms of environmental impact items such as abiotic depletion potential, global warming potential, and energy consumption. We then devise four practical warranty policies that vary in the choice of replacement and/or provision for extended warranty. All possible replacement scenarios for multiple life cycles are explored for each policy and a mathematically rigorous framework is provided, where the reliability information is used to calculate probabilistic LCWC and life cycle impact items. This reliability-informed LCWC analysis and LCA framework enables design engineers to compare design options and warranty policies by quantifying both economical and environmental impacts to aid in decision making. Although the framework is presented in a general form applicable to any engineered system, we demonstrate the utility of this framework by using a case study of an infinitely variable transmission used in agricultural equipment.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2022

PV DMFA [SWR-21-105]

The Photovoltaic Dynamic Material Flow Assessment (PV DMFA) model (also referred to here as “The model”) is a computational framework written in Python based on utility-scale PV electricity generation to quantify time-series stocks and flows of PV materials primarily in crystalline silicon PV technologies. The model evaluates cradle-to-cradle life cycle of utility-scale solar PV systems in the United States in the period 2000-2100. PV DMFA serves as a sustainability analysis tool to assess the impacts of different material circularity practices (i.e., reduce, reuse/refurbish, remanufacture, and recycle), PV module design shifts and sensitivity of material processing and technology related parameters to material installations, waste creation and raw material depletion in PV material supply chains. This tool enables advanced planning for future material needs and informs sustainable pathways for PV material management in the circular economy. This tool could be helpful to a wide range of stakeholders; Particularly, researchers and manufacturers looking for technoeconomic and/or environmental life cycle analysis (LCA) feedback for renewable energy (RE) systems.

Khalifa, SherifA.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Effects of Material Selection on the Remanufacturability of a Swashplate in an Axial Piston Pump

A swashplate is a critical component in an axial piston pump for motion transformation that undergoes cyclic loading. Traditionally, swashplates are not designed to have multiple lives of operation. According to industry experts, a remanufacturability analysis of swashplates suggests that the scrap rate is high. Among the primary reasons for this high scrap rate is insufficient material on the running surface, especially for subtractive recovery. Therefore, the selection of the proper material and its amount plays a significant role in the fatigue behavior, the remanufacturability of the swashplate, as well as its cost. Analyses addressing fatigue life, remanufacturability, and cost of the swashplate were carried out in this paper through a comparative study utilizing various materials. Recommendations on the material selection that balance the failure consequences, remanufacturability, and cost are provided to guide designers in making informed decisions for alternative design options.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Strategies for achieving circular economy goals in the lighting industry through design for disassembly- based methodologies

The significance of circular economy and its integration into core strategies for smart, sustainable, and inclusive growth, is increasingly being recognized by individuals, organisations, and nations in recent times. The term Design for Disassembly (DfD) may conjure up images about the end-of-life of a product or its disposal. However, DfD connects to numerous circularity and sustainability goals over the lifetime of a product or project and can have a large impact on the carbon footprint of the product. The DfD is a product development methodology which is in line with the vision of a circular economy, and supports increase in material efficiency, extends product lifetimes and improves recycling efficiency. Reduction of the imposed environmental risks and impact on the climate, by utilising circularity approaches such as remanufacturing, are tied to lowering of carbon footprint. This paper describes specific and actionable approaches that can be applied by luminaire manufacturers, specifiers, and other players in the lighting industry. The readers will learn about current tools and methodologies that can be used to improve iterative design, as well as measure, assess, and compare products or materials.

design for disassembly, dfd, circularity↗
DOE OSTI2021

In-situ Nondestructive Evaluation of In-flight Particle Dynamics and Intrinsic Properties for Directed Energy Deposition

The objective of this exploratory project is to determine the feasibility of using laser diffraction, structured light 3D scanning, and x-ray diffraction for in-situ assessment and inspection of metal directed energy deposition (DED) that is applied to repair components such as engine parts in remanufacturing. During this project, we have successfully published or submitted at least one journal article for each subtask that we identified. One of our conference paper and presentation has won “best paper award” from Manufacturing & Design Division in the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) Annual Conference 2021. Through this seed grant, we successfully validated the concepts and proved the three in-situ monitoring techniques work well to predict some defects generation during direct energy deposition. We submitted follow-up proposals to continue work on this topic.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

More Than Recycling: The Importance of Multiple Metrics for a Circular Economy for PV in the Energy Transition

Energy transition to carbon-free electricity is a crucial pillar of the Circular Economy. Renewable energy reduces environmental impacts and decarbonizes the production of other goods. But, manufacturing renewable energy sources, such as photovoltaic (PV) modules, require energy inputs that are currently carbon intensive. So, how do we decarbonize and circularize these critical technologies to achieve a sustainable energy transition? This work proposes that effective capacity-the installed capacity accounting for degradation rates and failures-is a critical metric to evaluate renewable energy technologies on the path toward circular economy and energy transitions. Our analyses also emphasize the importance of examining a suite of metrics incorporating mass and energy flows to identify potential tradeoffs and inform design or lifecycle management decisions holistically.

bifacial↗
DOE OSTI2023

More Than Recycling: How Should We Define Circularity Goals for PV in a Global Energy Transition? Preprint

Energy transition to carbon-free electricity is a crucial pillar of the Circular Economy. Renewable energy reduces environmental impacts and decarbonizes the production of other goods. But, manufacturing renewable energy sources, such as photovoltaic (PV) modules, require energy inputs that are currently carbon intensive. So, how do we decarbonize and circularize these critical technologies to achieve a sustainable energy transition? This work proposes that effective capacity-the installed capacity accounting for degradation rates and failures-is a critical metric to evaluate renewable energy technologies on the path toward circular economy and energy transitions. Our analyses also emphasize the importance of examining a suite of metrics incorporating mass and energy flows to identify potential tradeoffs and inform design or lifecycle management decisions holistically.

bifacial↗