Sustainable Engineering

A multidisciplinary introduction to sustainable engineering exploring challenges and solutions through practical examples and exercises.

Assessing Engineering Designs for Environmental, Economic, and Social Impact Engineers will play a central role in addressing one of the twenty-first century’s key challenges: the development of new technologies that address societal needs and wants within the constraints imposed by limited natural resources and the need to protect environmental systems. To create tomorrow’s sustainable products, engineers must carefully consider environmental, economic, and social factors in evaluating their designs. Fortunately, quantitative tools for incorporating sustainability concepts into engineering designs and performance metrics are now emerging. Sustainable Engineering introduces these tools and shows how to apply them. Building on widely accepted principles they first introduced in Green Engineering, David T. Allen and David R. Shonnard discuss key aspects of designing sustainable systems in any engineering discipline. Their powerful, unified approach integrates essential engineering and quantitative design skills, industry perspectives, and case studies, enabling engineering professionals, educators, and students to incorporate sustainability throughout their work. Coverage includes A concise review of the natural resource and environmental challenges engineers face when designing for sustainability Analysis and legislative frameworks for addressing environmental issues and sustainability Methods for identifying green and sustainable materials Principles for improving the sustainability of engineering designs Tools for evaluating sustainable designs and monetizing their benefits

Preface -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Setting up a design assignment -- 3. Structuring the sustainability context -- 4. Creating design solutions -- 5. Acquiring sustainable design competences.

"The efficient utilization of energy, sustainable use of natural resources, and large-scale adoption of sustainable technologies is the key to a sustainable future. The Handbook of Sustainable Engineering provides tools that will help us achieve these goals". Nobel Prize Winner Dr. R.K. Pachauri, Chairman, UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change As global society confronts the challenges of diminishing resources, ecological degradation, and climate change, engineers play a crucial role designing and building technologies and products that fulfil our needs for utility and sustainability. The Handbook of Sustainable Engineering equips readers with the context and the best practices derived from both academic research and practical examples of successful implementations of sustainable technical solutions. The handbook’s content revolves around the two themes, new ways of thinking and new business models, including sustainable production, products, service systems and consumption while addressing key assets based on new materials, optimized resource management, and new energy sources. Contributions reflect a focus on state-of-the art insights into employing smart materials, recycling e-waste, water utilization, solar cells, product lifecycles, transportation and reverse manufacturing. Supportive of this, underlying issues such as engineering education, consumer behaviour and the regulatory climate complete the handbook’s comprehensive treatment of the problems and most promising solutions.

Sustainable Engineering: Principles and Implementation provides a comprehensive overview of the interdisciplinary field of sustainability as it applies to engineering and methods for implementation of sustainable practices. Due to increasing constraints on resources and on the environment and effects of climate change, engineers are being faced with new challenges. While it is generally believed that the concepts of sustainable design must be adhered to so that future generations may be protected, the execution and practice of these concepts are very difficult. It is therefore the focus of this book to give both a conceptual understanding as well as practical skills to apply sustainable engineering principles to engineering design. This book introduces relevant theory, principles, and ethical expectations for engineers, presents concepts related to industrial ecology, green engineering, and eco-design, and details frameworks that indicate the challenges and constraints of applying sustainable development principles. It describes the tools, protocols, and guidelines that are currently available through case studies and examples from around the world. The book is designed to be used by undergraduate and graduate students in any engineering program (with particular emphasis on civil, environmental and chemical engineering) and other programs in which sustainability is taught, in addition to practicing scientists and engineers and all others concerned with the sustainability of products, projects and processes. Specific Features: Discusses sources of contaminants and their impact on the environment Addresses sustainable assessment techniques, policies, protocols and guidelines Describes new tools and technologies for achieving sustainable engineering Includes social and economic sustainability dimensions Offers case studies demonstrating implementation of sustainable engineering practices

Introduction to Sustainability for Engineers aims to incorporate sustainability into curricula for undergraduate engineering students. The book starts with an introduction to the concept of sustainability, outlining core principles for sustainable development to guide engineering practice and decision making, including key tools aimed at enabling, measuring and communicating sustainability. It also describes concepts as life cycle assessment, environmental economics, related institutional architecture and policy framework, business context of sustainability, and sustainable buildings and infrastructure. Appendices at the end of the book presents a summary of key concepts, strategies and tools introduced in the main text. Five Key Benefits: A comprehensive textbook for engineering students to develop competency in sustainability. Presents a framework for engineers to put sustainability into practice. Presents the link between sustainability and the design process. It shows the application of a sustainable engineering design process for putting sustainability into practice. There are well woven case studies and links to websites for learning in various engineering disciplines. Includes challenging exercises at the end of each chapter that will inspire students and stimulate discussion in the class.

Transition Engineering: Building a Sustainable Future examines new strategies emerging in response to the mega-issues of global climate change, decline in world oil supply, scarcity of key industrial minerals, and local environmental constraints. These issues pose challenges for organizations, businesses, and communities, and engineers will need to begin developing ideas and projects to implement the transition of engineered systems. This work presents a methodology for shifting away from unsustainable activities. Teaching the Transition Engineering approach and methodology is the focus of the text, and the concept is presented in a way that engineers can begin applying it in their work.

The book is a multidisciplinary space and serves as a platform to share and learn about the frontier knowledge between different areas related to “Recent trends in sustainable engineering.” Sustainable engineering promotes the responsible use of resources and materials involved in the different manufacturing processes or the execution stages of a service. An interdisciplinary approach is required in all aspects of engineering. In this sense, engineers, researchers, and the academic community will play a fundamental role in developing new technologies that respect the environment, still, at the same time, that considers social and economic factors.