Teaching Students About The Environmental Impact Of Material Choice In Design

Engineers make things out of materials and the more things they make, the greater the damage to the environment. Today’s student engineers need to know how to minimize this environmental damage through their choice of materials. This paper presents a rational, practical methodology for achieving environmentally sound material selection. It is well understood that there are four phases to the life cycle of materials: material production, manufacturing, use, and disposal. Each phase has an impact on the environment. By limiting the impact of the most dominant of these life phases, a product becomes more “green”. To assist both teaching and implementation of the methodology, a software tool, the new Eco Edition of CES EduPack, is discussed. The tool has three teaching levels: Level 1 introduces environmental factors such as embodied energy, CO2 creation, and recyclability for around 60 of the most common materials. More materials and environmental parameters are added at Level 2. The third and highest level, Level 3, has over 70 properties for over 3,000 materials allowing material optimization for real designs on economic, environmental, and technical grounds. The method is illustrated with case studies.