1. Thermag VII, Torino, Italy
TORINO, 14th September 2016

2. LIFE CYCLE OPTIMIZATION
PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE OPTIMIZATION: evaluates the economic and environmental dimensions, taking into consideration the technical requirement.
Methodology:
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): environmental impacts evaluation
Life Cycle Costing (LCC): total costs analysis
LIFE CYCLE THINKING
TAKES INTO ACCOUNT THE ENTIRE PRODUCT’S LIFECYCLE

3. LIFE CYCLE THINKING APPROACH
Product Lifecycle
Life Cycle Assessment standardized method, which quantifies all the relevant emissions and resources consumed, and the related environmental impacts over the entire lifecycle of any product
Life Cycle Costing sum of all recurring and one-time (non-recurring) costs over the full life span or a specified period of a product

4. LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a structured, comprehensive and internationally standardised method, which quantifies all the relevant emissions and resources consumed, both directly and indirectly, and the related environmental and health impacts and resource depletion issues that are associated with the entire life cycle of any goods or services (in general terms, of a product) [ISO 14044].

5. LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT – FRAMEWORK
GOAL AND SCOPE DEFINITION  including the system boundaries and level of details
INVENTORY ANALYSIS (LCI)  an inventory of input/output data with regard to the system being studied.
IMPACT ASSESSMENT (LCIA)  providing additional information to help assess a product system’s LCI results so as to better understand their environmental significance.
INTERPRETATION  discussing the results as conclusions, recommendations and decision-making in accordance with the goal and scope definition.

6. LIFE CYCLE COSTING
Life Cycle Costing (LCCs) are the sum of all recurring and one-time (non- recurring) costs over the full life span or a specified period of a good, service, structure, or system. They include purchase price, installation cost, operating costs, maintenance and upgrade costs, and remaining (residual or salvage) value at the end of ownership of its useful life.

7. SIMULATION TOOLBOX CONCEPTUALIZATION
The ELICiT Simulation Toolbox is a set of computer-based tools allowing the assessment of economic and environmental information that are summarized into a calculation sheet.
Functional Group analysis
On-site data acquisition
Environmental/Economic assessment
Final elaboration and decision support

8. SIMULATION TOOLBOX SELECTED INDEXES
PERFORMANCES
CATEGORY
INDICATOR
PERFORMANCES
Temperature [°C]
Energy consumption [kWh/y]
COSTS
Production Costs
Usage Costs
Disposal Costs
ENVIRONMENT
Abiotic depletion
Global warming
Ozone layer depletion
Human toxicity
Fresh water aquatic eco-toxicity
Marine aquatic eco-toxicity
Terrestrial eco-toxicity
Photochemical oxidation
Acidification
Eutrophication
ReCiPe
COSTS
ENV IMPACTS

9. SIMULATION TOOLBOX – STEP 1: Functional Group analysis
CONVENTIONAL
MAGNETIC

10. SIMULATION TOOLBOX – STEP 1: Functional Group analysis (FOCUS ON MAGNETIC REFRIGERATOR)
Alternatives (different design or different material)
PUMP
Option 1: Gear Pump, with a well-known technology but higher energy consumption
Option 2: CR Pump, which has the potential to be more efficient up to 20% than the Gear Pump
HEAT EXCHANGER
Option 1: Natural convection based heat exchangers
Option 2: Forced Convection based heat exchangers. A fan through an air duct ensures the homogeneity of temperature inside of the cabinet
REGENERATORS
Option 1: LaFe13SiCo alloys
Option 2: LaCFe13SiMnH alloys
Option 3: LaCeFe13SiMnH alloys
Option 4: MnFeSiP alloys
PERMANENT MAGNET
Option 1: Ferrites: this alternative has been excluded because, from a previous study of Navarro et al. 2014, has greater impacts in many environmental impact categories compared to the Neodymium magnets
Option 2: NdFeB.
Option 3: CeNdFeb with a small part of Cerium.

11. SIMULATION TOOLBOX – STEP 2: On-site data acquisition
CONVENTIONAL
MAGNETIC

12. SIMULATION TOOLBOX – STEP 3: Assessment
Environmental assessment: LCA
Goal and Scope definition
Life Cycle Inventory implementation (On site data input, databases)
Life Cycle Impact Assessment (SIMAPRO)
Interpretation
Economic assessment: LCC
Plan analysis
Select model
Apply LCC model
Document results
Prepare Life Cycle Cost Analysis
Implement Life Cycle Cost Analysis

13. SIMULATION TOOLBOX – LCA Focus
The simulation toolbox results are related to the upstream and core processes, while, as far as the downstream processes are concerned, only the energy consumption of 73 kWh/year in the functional unit lifespan of 10 years has been included.
The environmental indicators reported in the toolbox are:
Acidification
Marine aquatic ecotoxicity
Abiotic depletion
Terrestrial ecotoxicity
Global warming (100a)
Photochemical oxidation
Ozone layer depletion (ODP)
Eutrophication
Human Toxicity
ReCiPe
Fresh water aquatic ecotoxicity
Human Health
Ecosystems
Resources

14. HEAT EXCHANGER: ENVIRONMENTAL DST INTERFACE

15. PUMP: ENVIRONMENTAL DST INTERFACE

16. MAGNETIC SYSTEM: ENVIRONMENTAL DST INTERFACE

17. SIMULATION TOOLBOX – STEP 4: Interpretation
CONVENTIONAL vs MAGNETIC:
- magnetic cooling technology represents a viable alternative to gas compressor technology ( mPt vs mPt based cooling system)
- the permanent magnet score could be reduced using, for example, permanent recycled material
With metal foam, NdCeFeB, LaFeSiCo

18. SIMULATION TOOLBOX – STEP 4: Interpretation
MAGNETIC SYSTEM :
- In absolute terms, the biggest impact is related to the permanent magnet
- As future guidelines for designers, the design of a permanent magnet should minimize the process impact and should use recycled material
EXAMPLE OF CONFIGURATION
REGENERATORS
LaFeSiCo
PERMANENT MAGNET
NdFeB
VALVING SYSTEM
Option1
ELECTRIC ENGINE
NOT INCLUDED
In absolute terms, the biggest impact is related to the permanent magnet. As future guidelines for designers, the design of a permanent magnet should minimize the process impact and should use recycled material. In this way there will have a substantial positive impact. Due to the prototype nature of the regenerators that still use a semi manual process to be assembled, the impact of the production process is proportionally far bigger than the material extraction and transformation phase on the ReCiPe indicator. With the new automatic assembly line it is expected to reduce considerably the process component impact.

19. SIMULATION TOOLBOX – STEP 4: Interpretation
PERMANENT MAGNET:
- The graph shows how the use of Cerium instead of Neodymium has significant decrease on the impacts.
- The Neodymium extraction and transformation processes represent about 80% of the total impacts.
For this reason, a solution with the highest possible percentage of Cerium instead of Neodymium may decrease the total impacts in all the categories.

20. SIMULATION TOOLBOX – STEP 4: Interpretation
REGENERATORS:
- considering the ReCiPe indicator, Mn extraction process has a high impact on the final results. So its presence, if necessary should be reduced as much as possible compatibly with the sought cooling machine performances.
- The analysis of other indicators may change the results.
- LCA has been chosen as first environmental toolbox methodology, due to its comprehensive evaluation of different environmental indicators, in order to have a full picture of the impact.

21. SIMULATION TOOLBOX – STEP 4: Interpretation
PUMP RESULTS:
- The two pump alternatives have two big differences, the weight and the energy efficiency.
- The CR Pump has the lower env. Impact due to the higher energy efficiency

22. SIMULATION TOOLBOX – STEP 4: Interpretation
HEAT EXCHANGER RESULTS:
- two different convection systems: the first with a fan (forced convection) the second with a fan (natural convection)
- The option with the forced convection has higher impacts due to the energy consumption during the usage phase.
- The differences on the impacts are caused by the energy consumption of the forced convection

23. CONCLUSION
Decision Support Toolbox, used during the design and build of magnetically cooled domestic refrigerator prototypes.
At the current development stage of a magnetically cooled domestic refrigerator (Technology readiness level, TRL6), the environmental impacts of the cooling system of the magnetic cooling system was estimated of the same order of magnitude of the conventional cooling system, which uses the gas compressors.
Thanks to the DST preliminary results, the designers can focus their efforts towards the improvement of the functional groups such as the permanent magnet, in order to achieve better results than the conventional devices.
The DST ensures an interactive environment where designer can evaluate different configuration scenario of the same product. Moreover, the DST will be enlarged with new processes and material databases.

24. Thank You. Rossella Luglietti rossella. luglietti@polimi
Thank You! Rossella Luglietti elicit-project.eu #MagneticCooling