About the Project
REA 1345
• AIM
This research will develop new knowledge (including business model) to enable profitable, environmentally conscious Ship E-O-L management within the EU as it is a clear gap in practise and research. It will build on the current SIR ship recycling project and best practices from other sectors.
• Context & State of the art
Ship-recycling is undergoing a transformation: New regulations prevents European ship owners from dismantling their ships in substandard ship recycling yards. Most end-of-life vessels are currently dismantled in environmentally irresponsible and manual manner in developing countries. Ship owners face criticism for sending abroad waste that harm people and their environment, thus current regulations have focussed on hazardous material management. Current ship E-O-L practice is recycling of high value material; (mainly steel).
• Research need:
The new regulations are spurring interest in reviving EU ship recycling but environmentally-conscious and profitable ship recycling in the EU requires approaches that maximises value extraction from the E-O-L ships. Product recovery (particularly remanufacture) can provide greater environmental and economic performance than recycling but is not practised or researched for this sector. Moreover, the value of steel continues to decrease and designers resist recycled material because their properties are uncertain. Also, manual E-O-L ship management including recycling in the EU would be uneconomic in comparison to operations in developing countries because of the differential in labour costs. Remanufacture gives products of equal quality to conventional manufacturing for 50% of the energy and production costs: less CO2 is produced too and 85% of the weight of remanufactured products can be from used components thus reducing landfill. The auxiliary diesel engines powering the world’s 44,000 ships exhaust 260,000 four-stroke pistons/year. Replacing these pistons by conventional manufacture consumes five million tons of steel and 93.5 terajoules of energy; remanufacturing them would reduce raw material requirements by 99% and energy by 95%.”
• Objectives:
1. Use the inventory of ship content from the SIR project select 4 high- value ship equipment
2. Use simulation and LCA to compare the economic and environmental benefits of various E-O-L options for the components of the selected equipment.
3. Develop a framework identifying the economic and environmental benefits of particular E-O-L options for the components
4. Identify the stakeholders potentially involved in the supply and resupply chain of the components and determine their information needs as well as the information they possess
5. Identify barriers and current challenges that prevents or slows down application of effective E-O-L strategies in and prepare a suggestion.
6. Research and Develop sustainable business models for end-of-life management of the 4 selected ship equipment.
• Research challenge:
How to enable effective networking, information acquisition, management and transfer given high complexity due to (i) inadequate inter- stakeholder communication because of their huge numbers and geographical dispersion (ii) Ship owners’ ignorance of their ship’s contents (iii) high variety and uncertainty (e.g. ships have long life (30 years) and huge number of products resulting in large differential in design cycle and appropriate end-of-life management for ships and their contents).
The student will work in a project that encourages interdisciplinary working and collaboration, providing them with networking and experience of working across the boundaries in academia. Collaborative projects with national and international partners, e.g. Linkoping University, Sweden and Cambridge University, UK, will form part of the student’s training. Visit costs will be provided through the supervisors. The student will experience first-hand working in different research cultures, and countries, providing them with great experience, and unique skills.
The student will receive training relevant to their project and cutting across the disciplines involved. For example, the student will undertake training in Life Cycle Analysis (LCA). The use of LCA expands across many different disciplines, such that this new skill set will be useful (and transferable) in the student’s future career.
This will provide the student with rounded training, numerous transferable skills, and a valuable experience of research across disciplines.
Applicants must be able to demonstrate enthusiasm, creativity, resourcefulness and a mature approach to learning. Collaboration with industrial partners will be required during the duration of the PhD in order to apply the findings of the research. Therefore it is expected that the candidate will be willing to be exposed to work with industrial partners.
Applicants must be able to demonstrate enthusiasm, creativity, resourcefulness and a mature approach to learning.
Applications must be received by 30th June, 2017
For more information on the position, please e-mail [Email Address Removed]
Continue with Facebook
