9727136 Allada Stricter environmental legislation, corporate image, public perception, and rising waste-disposal costs are impetus for evolving research initiatives in the area of environmentally conscious design (ECD). One of the critical research issues of ECD is design for disassembly (DFD). Product disassembly considerations have major impact on serviceability and various end-of-product life cycle issues such as recycling, reuse, and remanufacturing. This research project attempts to conduct deeper investigations into the disassembly process by (1) Formalizing the disassembly process using graph theory and abstract algebra techniques and, (2) Developing an advanced design tool to evaluate product "greenness" at the concept design and final design stages. The context chosen is mechanical/electromechanical artifacts. The design information is fuzzy (of approximate nature) in the early design stages. However, crucial design decisions are made at the early design stages. As the design activity proceeds to the final stage, the design variables start assuming crisp values. However, there are fewer avenues to improve product greenness at the final design stages since there is less flexibility to incorporate the redesign suggestions. Maximum benefits will be reaped if a phased evaluation is performed at the concept and final design stages. A formal methodology for representing and processing imprecise design information of a conceptual artifact is proposed in this study. The green evaluator will have different evaluation perspectives for the concept and final design artifacts -- moving from generality to specificity. Fuzzy neural networks (FNN) in conjunction with expert reasoning system will be used to build this green evaluation design tool to determine the initial feasibility and green indices of a candidate design. The approach adopted in this study is to infer various life-cycle disassembly, serviceability, and recycling characteristics; provide qualitative evaluation by identifying portions of a design artifact that are environmentally burdensome; and compute appropriate green indices. Component-level and productlevel green indices will be computed in terms of factors such as relative disassembly cost and time, relative service cost and time, and relative product salvage value. Research issues relating to formalization of disassembly process and development of a computational design tool will involve interaction with the industrial supporters (Ford, Boeing, Finale International Tool, and Home, Inc.) of this project. The concepts and computational tools discussed in this study will lead to an increased understanding of the disassembly process and the development of advanced computer-based design tools to produce environment-friendly products. This will help the U.S. companies to meet the targeted ecological goals and gain advantage in the global marketplace. The Manufacturing Research and Training Center (MRTC), MO, has kindly agreed to cost share $24,976 over a period of two years. ***
