Disassembly Structures - An approach to understand Product Structures from a separation viewpoint

Abstract

Design for Recycling in this paper means design efforts early in the conceptual phase of product development in order to make a complex product more easy to recycle. Design for Disassembly, one of several challenges in Design for Recycling, is thought of as design efforts in order to make disassembling and separation easier, in the end of service life. One way of early adapting for disassembly is the authors concept of “Sorting_borders, Separating_surfaces and Resting_loadcases” [Luttropp_1995, 1996].

From a structural angle of approach many products look the same as separating objects. I have observed 5 different product families if classified by the first two separating and/or sorting levels.

Examples: Many products are structured as two halves, like a hamburger, with interiors as PCB, cables, motor etc.. Other products consists of one big piece of material and need just a primary sorting and perhaps upgrading at the end of service life.

It is my belief that the first two levels in disassembly work are the most important ones considering Eco_performance and that Design for Disassembly should focus on these two initial occurrences.