Access Type

Open Access Dissertation

Date of Award

January 2021

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Department

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

First Advisor

Jeremy J. Rickli

Abstract

Disassembly of products has gained more and more attention due to the economic, environmental, and social benefits and the contribution to the protection of natural resources [1]. Where, disassembly is the first and usually the most critical and challenging process in most recovery processes (i.e. remanufacturing, reuse, maintenance, and recycling processes) which are essential reverse flows in circular economy systems. As policies, regulations, products, and systems move towards and strive for a circular economy, it is increasingly vital that disassembly analysis, models, and methods are feasible during development and manufacturing life-cycle stages. However, checking disassembly feasibility is considered a critical step [2, 3] in determining the geometrical feasible disassembly sequence. Thus, today's designers need new tools allowing them in the early stage of assembly’s life (i.e. design phase) generating, evaluating, and verifying the feasibility of disassembling an assembly, determining disassembly sequence feasible in geometrical aspects, and predicting the change that happens in the geometrical disassemble feasibility in the assembly’s lifetime due to corrosion. In this dissertation, I worked on determining geometrical feasible disassembly sequences by checking the disassemble feasibility of components of an assembly by considering the types of relationships among components and summarizing all these disassembly sequences in one precedence matrix. Then, using the developed precedence matrix in predicting the change in geometrical disassemble feasibility that may happen due to corrosion between assembly’s’ parts in active lifetime of the assembly. In Chapter 2, we focused on using component interaction data from CAD design models to automatically extract critical disassembly information for contact and non-contact assembly’s parts. In Chapter 3, we focused on construct a precedence matrix from proven collision tests of contact, non-contact constraints. In Chapter 4, we focused on predicting changes in the geometrical disassemble feasibility of an assembly during its lifetime in early design phase. The success of this work improves the design of disassembly while it provides tools for designers to know the geometrical feasible disassembly sequences and know make the do a recommendation for the best time in assemblies’ lifetime to disassemble it and get the most of its part intact to reused the assemblies parts in future recovery processes.

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