Remanufacturing end-of-life passenger car waste sheet steel into mesh sheet: A sustainability assessment

Abstract

This study analysed the business sustainability of remanufacturing waste steel sheet from the shells of end-of-life vehicles into mesh steel sheet for manufacturing sheet-metal products. Hybrid statistical, fuzzy, and overall sustainability-index curve-fitting models were used to analyse the technical, economic, environmental, management, and social feasibility of remanufacturing, where the sales price, eco-cost savings, and CO2 emission reductions were used as typical statistical indicators. The remanufacturing process was optimised to allocate hardware for a plant recovering 480 m2/shift of waste sheet steel and producing 2851–5520 m2/shift of mesh sheet steel. Six scenarios were used to model the sustainability parameters to normalise the sustainability index values. The sustainability index of each parameter was calculated by multiplying its weight of importance by its weight of satisfaction. The highest sustainability index of 0.95 was calculated for the economic feasibility index, while the lowest sustainability index of 0.4 was calculated for the management feasibility. Remanufacturing of waste sheet steel into mesh sheet steel can be applied with an estimated overall sustainability index of 0.88.