Abstract
Abstract
The need for creating new manufacturing methods for sustainability is apparent given the harmful environmental effects of perpetual mining of raw materials. There are two common themes that dominate the work on sustainable design and manufacturing. One is using checklists during design to ensure reusability in the future by designing products with sustainability built into its life cycle. The other is developing design guidelines for designers to follow. The aim of this study was to explore a novel method of sustainable design through compositional manufacturing which enables resynthesizing nonfunctional pieces of scrap or waste material into functioning products. We conducted an exploratory case study with casting, where risers, gates, and miscast parts were resynthesized in a more sustainable and environmentally friendly way than remelting them. To do this, parts with arbitrary functions were created using various geometric properties taken from a selection of scrap parts. Based on initial observations, we identified few heuristics. One of the main discoveries was that groups of scrap parts with greater geometric differences resulted in final parts with more varied functions. The data gleaned from more targeted implementations of this process are required to create a more robust understanding of how effectively scrap parts can be utilized and how sustainable this process is compared to other design for sustainability methods.