A study of the current state of resource savings achieved by optimizing and processing environments for sustainable production was carried out by an international team of scientists, the press service of South Ural State University (SUSU) reported.
The team of researchers, which included scientists from the UK, Ireland, Poland, Turkey, Brazil, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, as well as Danil Pimenov, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Computer-Aided Engineering Technologies at SUSU, has proven a positive effect in the long term, which gives the introduction of production of environmentally friendly technologies, energy efficiency and optimization of resource use.
The researchers presented the results of the study in the article “Saving resources through the optimization and processing of environments for sustainable production: an overview and future prospects”, published in the journal Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews (Q1).
Machining is widely used in the modern industrial sector of the economy, including aerospace, automotive, energy, instrument-making and other industries.
The researchers analyzed the current state of machining operations and considered the leading current trends in providing resource-saving and environmentally efficient technologies in production.
Danil Pimenov explained: “A production designer creates products with a given shape, dimensional accuracy, surface condition and physical and mechanical characteristics of the material. The most important requirement for machining is producing products with appropriate dimensional accuracy and surface condition. However, these processes require certain inputs of resources, such as time, energy and finances.”
The research conducted by the team analyzed trends in the use of resource-saving, optimization and cooling methods in machining from the standpoint of resource-saving and environmentally friendly production.
Since an essential aspect of sustainable development is the conservation of energy and natural resources, optimized processes that minimize the negative environmental impact are now of great importance.
These include improving energy efficiency and switching to environmentally friendly and renewable energy sources. Danil Pimenov talked about ways to reduce pollution, emissions and waste during mechanical processing.
It is “the use of more environmentally friendly cooling methods; reducing or eliminating the need to use a cooling lubricant; improving the energy efficiency of machining operations; determination of optimal cutting conditions that save resources by increasing processing productivity or reducing the metal removal rate; minimization of energy consumption and reduction of carbon dioxide emissions”.
Currently, mechanical processing is not energy efficient, and machine tools and industrial equipment emit large amounts of carbon dioxide into the environment.
The scientists in their study write about technological precautions that can significantly reduce these adverse effects and simultaneously provide a company with productivity growth, optimizing time and economic costs.
The researchers say that adopting such measures will protect the environment and human health, increase productivity and lead to the conservation of resources, which will be the first step towards “green” production.