Investigate the application of functional decomposition in life cycle assessment to support ecodesign

• Main Author: Lim, Amelia Yi Xuan
• Other Authors: Su Rong
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2024
• Subjects: Earth and Environmental Sciences; Engineering; Functional decomposition; Life cycle assessment; Ecodesign
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/177035
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This paper aims to analyze and compare the environmental impacts of the different functions of an electrical oven, with reference to a paper which had conducted life cycle assessment (LCA) on the electrical oven. This study was not done in accordance with the conventional LCA study but instead through functional decomposition, to decompose the oven into its functions and tackle its three main functions. The heating, air circulation and insulating functions were chosen. The analysis is related to the functional unit “the baking of food, considering the Italian context and a lifetime of 10 years”. The analysis includes the raw material extraction, manufacturing/production, usage, and end-of-life (EOL) stages except for the transport phase which was deemed as negligible. The data for some of the composition of materials in each function and the relative masses, and energy consumption were obtained from the reference paper, and the rest of the data were supplemented by databases Granta and EcoInvent and other secondary sources. The study showed that the environmental impact of the heating function is the largest, as compared to the air circulation function and insulating function. This result is not surprising as the heating function is the main function of the oven, but the air circulation function also has a considerable environmental impact. Therefore, future works can be done to discover more environmentally friendly methods for the heating or air circulation function in hopes of designing products that have a smaller carbon footprint.