Overview
The aim of the project is to minimize the future environmental pollution caused by railway vehicles. Above all, the emissions (especially the quantity discarded) and the consumption of raw materials shall be minimized by means of a preventive use of innovative techniques which are disassembly-friendly and recyclable. The expected result is a concept ready for production which leads to a change for an environmentally friendly design theory of the construction of railway vehicles.The aim of this request is to develop a production method which gives special attention to decommissioning methods and techniques saving resources and to the application of reusable materials as early as during the construction of railway vehicles. This results in a disposal potential of 90,000 t if an average vehicle weight of 30 t is taken into account. Considering that, according to the present state of the art, approx. 45 % of this quantity is fed into the circular flow again by melting down the metal party, 5/9 or approx. 50,000 t would have to be disposed of. By means of our concept allowing for the application of reusable components, of more recyclable materials (from reproductive raw materials, if possible) and of an innovative disassembly technique, this share can be reduced by 90 % to 5,000 t. The demonstration project which is a pilot project at the preindustrial stage is organized such that a disassembly concept including all the used resources, waste and costings is planned for a representative type of vehicle. The resulting checklist serves as a foundation for the subsequent disassembly test carried out on a predecessor. All disassembly operations are economically and ecologically assessed and compared with each other and environmentally-relevant connections are determines during the service life. Then, a highly innovative process for the realization of the design is started by taking the gained knowledge into account. During the process, great importance is attached to the application of new materials and material connections. At the end of the project, a concept applicable to a whole industry and ready for production shall be presented for an environmentally friendly design theory of the construction of railway vehicles including new design principles and reutilization concepts.