Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
1999-06-09
2003-03-11
Jung, David (Department: 2175)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06532464
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method and an apparatus for assessing environmental load of a product, and more particularly to a method and an apparatus for assessing environmental load of a product over a lifetime thereof from fabrication to disposal thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is presently required to accurately assess influence exerted by various products including industrial products, on an environment, and reduce environmental load, in view of preservation of the global environment.
Conventional assessment of environmental load of a certain product has been carried out by checking presence or absence and an amount of hazardous materials only in a part of steps of fabricating the product. However, such a conventional method cannot provide accurate assessment, if environmental load is to be assessed about an amount of carbon dioxide and waste heat, which is just small in each of fabrication steps, but cannot be ignored over all the fabrication steps.
In addition, environmental load cannot be ignored for some products in circulation, use and disposal thereof. However, the above-mentioned conventional method cannot be applied to such products.
In order to reduce environmental load, it would be necessary to design a product taking into consideration environmental load over a life cycle of a product from fabrication to disposal thereof. In order to make it possible to design a product in such a manner, it is necessary to quantify environmental load over a life cycle of a product. As a method of assessing environmental load over a life cycle of a product, there has been known a method called life cycle assessment (hereinafter, referred to simply as “LCA”).
One of LCAs is a pile-up process, wherein a life cycle of a product from fabrication to disposal thereof is separated into nodes such as selection of raw material, fabrication of raw material, fabrication of a product, use of a product, and disposal of a product. All nodes are defined as being connected to one another in a line. Environmental load in each of nodes is separately measured, and the thus measured environmental loads are summed to thereby obtain total environmental load of an object product.
FIG. 1
illustrates an example of a model used in the above-mentioned pile-up process, which model is comprised of a plurality of nodes connected to one another in a line.
FIG. 1
illustrates nodes relating to a product A. Namely, a node
60
of gathering raw material, a node
61
of making raw material, a node
62
of fabricating a product A, a node
63
of using a product A, and a node
64
of disposing a product A are all connected to a product A in a line.
For instance, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 7-121588 has suggested a method of assessing environmental load, based on life cycle assessment. In this method, there are calculated environmental load in fabrication nodes from gathering raw material to fabricating a final product, environmental load in practical use nodes wherein a product is sold in a market, and practically used by a user, and environmental load in waste nodes wherein a product is wasted and decomposed for recycling, and then, those environmental load are summed. Each of the environmental loads in both practical use and waste nodes is comprised of first load in each of the nodes and second load in steps of fabricating a product or products to be used in each of the nodes, and the first and second loads are both measured in the method. Furthermore, environmental load is measured based on both an input coefficient matrix obtained from an input-output table and a unit vector of environmental load.
The method suggested in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 7-121588 uses an input-output table which is used in economics, taking into consideration that it is quite difficult to find raw materials necessary for fabricating a final product, in every node.
If such a model as illustrated in
FIG. 1
in which a plurality of nodes are connected to one another in a line is to be used, it would be almost impossible to assess environmental load of an electric or mechanical product constituted of a plurality of parts. Hence, the inventor has suggested a method of assessing environmental load of an object product in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 7-311760. In the suggested method, a relation between unit steps is represented in a tree structure where an object product is represented by a root, and a unit or single step is represented by a node. Such a tree structure is made for both steps relating to fabrication of the object product and steps of disposal of the object product. Total environmental load of the object product is calculated based on environmental load measured in each of unit steps.
FIG. 2
illustrates an example of a tree structure model. In the illustrated tree structure model, it is assumed that a product A is constituted of a part D and a part E. Nodes
72
and
75
of fabricating the parts D and E are located in parallel upstream of a node
71
of fabricating the product A. A node
74
of gathering raw material B of which the part D is constituted and a node
73
of transporting the raw material B are located upstream of the node
72
of fabricating the part D. Similarly, a node
77
of gathering raw material C of which the part E is constituted and a node
76
of transporting the raw material C are located upstream of the node
75
of fabricating the part E.
In the illustrated tree structure model, it is also assumed that the product A is decomposed into a decomposition F and a decomposition G. A node
78
of using the product A, a node
79
of transporting the product B, and a node
80
of decomposing the product A are located downstream of the product A. In addition, a node
81
of disposing the decomposition F and a node
82
of disposing the decomposition G are located in parallel downstream of the node
80
of decomposing the product A.
FIG. 3
is a block diagram of a structure of an apparatus for assessing environmental load, suggested in the above-mentioned Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 7-311760. The illustrated apparatus is used for assessing influence to environment over a life cycle of a product from fabrication to disposal of an object product. As mentioned above, a life cycle of an object product is divided into unit nodes from fabrication to disposal. The illustrated apparatus measures environmental load in each of unit nodes, and sums the thus measured environmental loads to thereby calculate total environmental load of an object product.
As illustrated in
FIG. 3
, the apparatus is comprised of an input section
51
through which data used for calculation of environmental load is input, a data-storing section
52
storing data having been input through the input section
51
, a calculating section
53
which calculates total environmental load of an object product, and an output section
54
which outputs data about each of unit steps and the thus calculated total environmental load of an object product.
The input section
51
receives data about content of each of unit steps, data about a relation among unit steps, environmental load subjects occurring in each of unit steps, and environmental loads in the environmental load subjects.
The data-storing section
52
stores the subjects and environmental loads having been input through the input section
51
.
The calculating section
53
calculates total environmental load of an object product based on both a relation among unit steps, stored in the data-storing section
56
and environmental loads in each of unit steps.
FIG. 4A
illustrates an example of data of a unit step relating to fabrication of an object product, stored in the data-storing section
56
, and
FIG. 4B
illustrates an example of data of a unit step relating to disposal of an object product, stored in the data-storing section
56
.
It is assumed that a product is composed of m raw materials in a target unit step in data illustrated in FIG.
4
A. Data illustrate
Jung David
Whitham Curtis & Christofferson, PC
LandOfFree
Method of assessing environmental load and apparatus of... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Method of assessing environmental load and apparatus of..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Method of assessing environmental load and apparatus of... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3071181