Redsigning Mature Products for Substainability

• This contribution will discuss engineering design projects with various environmental and sustainable objectives. The automotive industry is facing a major vicissitude regarding the system layouts of their products. Given the rapidly increasing demands for environmentally acceptable and sustainable vehicles, developed even faster and under increasing competition, one could expect a future, or a period of transition, where a “market pull”-situation will exact design methods more adapted for new propulsion technologies such as fuel cells, bio-fuels, hybrid configurations and so forth. When looking at two-wheeled vehicles it is also a matter of a dramatic change in the safety requirements that would affect the design process in a similar way.This paper presents studies made regarding development of two-wheeled vehicles with strict safety, environmental and sustainability requirements. It also describes what happens when a very mature product, such as a conventional motorcycle, undergoes dramatic changes in propulsion system and safety features and becomes technically immature, but still has to preserve its traditional values in the eyes of the consumer. Over the last two years, the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Linköping University has conducted various projects dealing with these issues using rapid, low-cost, demonstrator development together with digital models. The demonstrator is used as a vehicle to evaluate the integration of technology, as well as less tangible aspects such as ergonomics, drivability, appeal, visual impression etc. This approach has proven particularly fruitful when dealing with new technologies with a high level of innovation. The rapid nature of these projects also makes them suitable for exploring digital collaboration tools aimed at controlling and speeding up the design process.

Nyckelord

Innovation

Sustainability

Electric Motorcycle

TECHNOLOGY

TEKNIKVETENSKAP

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