There's no doubt the engineering crew at Hydrovolts has sustainability on its mind. The Washington-based company builds portable hydro power turbines designed to turn the overlooked global resource of big irrigation canals into a power source for developed and developing countries alike.
At this early stage in the game, though, fine tuning the performance of the turbine is still the primary design goal for the upstart development team. Yet, as the turbine gets closer to becoming a commercialized product, the team is increasingly focused on environmental optimization of materials and manufacturing practices. Rather than promote sustainability as an entirely new design charter, however, Hydrovolts founder and CEO Burt Hamner views the direction as just another core tenet of good R&D practices.
SolidWorks Sustainability provides a dashboard of Lifecycle Assessment data, allowing engineers to search for comparable materials and determine the environmental impact of assemblies. (Source: SolidWorks)
Hamner said:
I'm not asking my engineers to be anything other than a good engineer -- I have no intentions of making them environmentalists. If I can give them the tools that are practical and integrated with their daily operations so they can make environmentally better choices, great. Then they'll make those choices because they can see the data -- I don't have to change their belief system in order to make them green designers.
With all the hoopla over sustainability and amidst consumers' increasing demands for greener products, engineers across all industries -- not just those squarely in the so-called green space -- are feeling the heat to make sustainability a key design objective as they either rework or reinvent products. But architecting a product with an eye toward more environmentally-friendly materials choices or end-of-life recyclability is not a slam dunk for engineers, many of whom still find these concepts relatively foreign and for whatever personal or cultural reasons, have not fully embraced the value proposition of greener product development.
Nevertheless, customer requirements, coupled with a growing litany of government regulations both in the US and overseas -- is forcing engineering departments to make some radical changes to their product design processes to address sustainability. For some, it's simply a matter of doing a better job of working with an extended supply chain to manage and track all of the parts and substances that go into their products and related manufacturing processes. For others, it's a far more proactive approach of examining their product through a full lifecycle lens, zeroing in on any and all aspects where even the smallest design change can spark the greatest environmental impact.
@Richardo: I agree that improved design tools aren't enough to ensure a more sustainable mentality when it comes to design, but they can certainly help and ensure the engineer has the data and tools they need to make key decisions along the way. But you're right in pointing out that the real challenge lies within the organizational culture and the vision from top management. Without that, any kind of sustainbility effort is doomed.
> Somehow we need to bridge the thinking and address the disposable society mentality
I doubt if this can be done via improved engineering tools. The push must come from the customer, the evil marketing dept. To change these evildoers might require serious legislation. eg Mandated Warranty and Cost Effective (to the customer) Service support for all electronic, white goods and automatic product for at least 10 yrs.
This might reduce the number of 'designed by monkeys' products which are really 'specified to ridiculous timescales by monkeys' products.
Somehow we need to bridge the thinking and address the disposable society mentality with a sustainable bend to our design tactics. I do think more and more of that is starting to filter into engineers' mind sets.
I think sustainable design starts with thinking things through. We learn that, in theory, in design school but it's rarely put into practice. Our disposable economy has been around for almost a century. It's no wonder that sustainable design has had a difficult time being accepted in the mainstream until now.
It's good to see more tools to help designer/engineers today get back to the basics of thinking things through and creating sustainable design.
This has always been my dream. Capture the energy from a river or a stream for household independence. I certainly will pay attention to Hydrovolts to see how they progress. I would even like to see if they could use another engineer on this project. But I don't think it is so important where it is made. If you do it right, and have the inspiration to think it globally, it might be designed to be made in any country with a minimum of skill.
The other interest of mine is power from the waves. Surely there is money to be made from harnessing it properly. And again, there are a lot of poor countries with coast lines. What a boon to those economies either of these technologies could be. Plus the infrastructure that would have to be built and maintained. It is mind boggling!
The 3D printing revolution seems to have a knack for quickly moving technology ahead by way of collaborative effort and even a little friendly competition -- all of course in the name of scientific advancement.
Laura Sapiens' Ego! Smartmouse offers users a unique interactive experience by providing 2D and 3D connectivity, hardware identity authentication, data storage, and more.
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