Eco-design

Eco-design is one of the several methodologies developed in the industrial area in order to reach the objectives of the sustainable development. These objectives presented in the Brundtland report can be summarized as the resources conservation and the environmental impact reduction. Eco-design methods  intend then to integrate the environmental aspect with the other aspects like cost, feasability, etc during the design of a product (Fig 1).

Fig 1 : Word cloud of keywords from 20 articles tackling eco-design (the font size is in accordance with how often the keyword was used) .

During my Ph.D. study I take part to the sustainable development goal achievement by the development of an eco-design approach. This approach focused mainly on the environmental aspect of the analysed system or product. It permits to identify main paramaters which can steer the environmental burdens of the analysed system.

Life cycle analysis

Life cycle analysis or Life cycle assessment (LCA) is the most develloped environmental methodology nowadays.  This methodology intends to provide a generic estimation of the environmental impacts (Fig 2) of a product (material or immaterial) using several impact indicators. These impact indicators such as climate change, eutrophication, acidification , toxicity characterize the different existing environmental problems.

Fig 2 : (a) drought caused by temperature rising, (b) algae proliferation caused by the oversupply of nitrogeneous and phosphorus compounds , (c) air pollution caused by particulate matter and other mineral compounds' emissions.

My works with LCA concerns its use for an eco-design target. I made several applications in the following sectors: in building, in agriculture and in industry. The target was to minimize energy consumption, resources consumption or environmental impacts by analysing numerous scenario.

Building physics

The science of building physics is a broad domain with a multiscale applications. My works in this domain is at the building and the wall scale. At the building scale it concerns the optimization of the building comfort and the energy consumption related. Several solutions were investigated such as passive solutions like the orientation of the building, the composition of the wall, ventilation control…

  Fig 3 : Evolution of heat and humidity in a multilayer wall.

At the wall scale, it concerns the study and the modelling of all occurring physical phenomena related to heat and humidity transport. These phenomena can be studied and represented at a macroscale like the heat exchange by convection on the material surface or at a microscale like the heat conduction trough the micro particle composing the studied material. I studied the heat and humidity transfer at a micro and macro scale of the wall (Fig 3).

Sensitivity analysis

Sensitivity analysis is a part of the statistics science. It is the study of the influence of the different inputs of a model against its outputs. It can be used in order to reduce a model, identify key parameters or weight the effect of model resolution. My applications of sensitivity analysis method concern its main object, the identification and the weighting of the different input parameters.

Image sources

fig 1 :

http://www.leanature.com/fr/nos-engagements-nature/73/l_analyse_du_cycle_de_vie_des_produits.html

fig 2 : 

http://www.allodocteurs.fr/actualite-sante-pollution-en-chine--les-villages-du-cancer-reconnus-officiellement_9628.html

http://fortune.fdesouche.com/tag/secheresse

http://eatddyss2.eklablog.com/l-eutrophisation-a114464420