Avaliação comparativa do ciclo de vida de materiais usados em blocos de motor

Abstract

Inherent decisions to the development of new products are of great responsibility. With markets more demanding about perfomance and sustainability, companies look for alternatives to keep their product's competitivity, hence analysis of materials and processes is essential to their objective's achievements. This paper questions, from these premises, the sustainable development in the brazilian automotive industry, particularly in the intern combustion engines field, proposing the use of the Life Cycle Assessment as a comparative tool for environmental impacts. Inside this analys, data from two cylinder blocks, one made of cast iron, and other of aluminum, were collected and compared. Among the possible phases of study, the phase of extraction and production of raw materials needed for the block's production was selected. LCA methodology is based on policies from padronization agencies, like ISO 14040. Data referring to the weight of the cast iron block weight were found in the literature, and for the aluminum block, the Ecoinvent 3 database was used. For the impact assessment the method chosen was the ReCiPe, middle point. The observed results have shown the aluminum block had minor impacts when compared to the cast iron block, due to the extraction type of raw materials and metal making. Regarding the impact categories, the indicator marine ecotoxicity standed for the highest emissions to both of the blocks. Other indicators of great discrepancy were freshwater ecotoxicity and human toxicity, all favoring aluminum. It was concluded that the aluminum engine block has great ambiental advantages and possibly economical ones when compared to the cast iron engine block. The result of this paper illustrated the potential of aluminum as automotive material, bringing benefits to industry and applying sustainable development.