COMPARATIVE LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT OF COMPLEX HEAVY-DUTY OFF-ROAD EQUIPMENT

This paper presents a method for comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) of two distinctively different systems based on industrial heavy-duty off-road equipment. The study demonstrates how to compare the environmental impact performance of two different machines when they perform the same types of operations, but have different levels of operational productivity. Considering the entire life cycle of a machine from material extraction to end-of-life treatment, the two machines are analyzed and compared in terms of their life cycle impact score. To make a fair comparison between the two machines, the impact generated by the same amount of production is used as the basis for comparison. The results of the study can quantify the relative life cycle impact across different machine architectures for design and market support purposes.