LMP Seminar: Ecological Guidance for Sustainable Industrial Network Design
LMP Seminar
- Date: Jul 30, 2019
- Time: 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
- Speaker: Dr. John Reap
- Quinnipiac University, School of Engineering, Hamden, Connecticut, USA
- Location: Max-Planck-Institut für Dynamik und Selbstorganisation (MPIDS)
- Room: Otto-Hahn-Raum 1.10, Am Faßberg 17, Göttingen
- Host: MPIDS / LMP
- Contact: evelyn.tang@ds.mpg.de
Faced with increasing environmental demands on Earth’s resources and waste sinks, this talk discusses bio-inspiration as a design guide for creating more environmentally sustainable industrial resource networks. It briefly contrasts retrospective design approaches based upon life cycle assessment with one that emphasizes the potential of bio-inspiration. A series of network flow and structural metrics based on ecological concepts guide the design of a carpet tile manufacture, distribution, and reuse-recycling network. By simultaneously achieving low costs and reduced environmental burdens, this work suggests a design approach for more environmentally sustainable industrial resource networks, and it reveals opportunities to probe the underlying relationships between ecological and engineered networks.