Study on Life Cycle Assessment of Servo Press With Comparison to Flywheel Press

Heavy duty machines consume a tremendous amount of energy during their life cycle. Therefore, designing an energy efficient machine is of great importance. This paper presents a method for the comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) of two different types of press machines: servo press and flywheel press to understand quantitatively the environmental emissions during their life cycles. To make a fair comparison of the two machines, the same amount of production is used as the basis for comparison. Assessment scopes and boundaries are defined first, then detailed product structures and manufacturing processes are investigated. After data collection from visiting enterprises, related project reports, academic papers, and commercial software databases, analysis of the life cycle inventory is performed. Comparative inventory tables for each life cycle stages and whole life cycle are presented. The results of the study can be used for decision making during the product purchase, planning and design process.