JP2002140375A - Life evaluation system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To speedily modify the design for longer life by speedily and objectively computing the life of each constitution component while making it to be linked with CAD data of an object product to be designed, and further to perform LCA evaluation. SOLUTION: This system has a data acquisition part 21 which acquires three-dimensional CAD data 11 on an object product to be designed, an outside environment setting part 23 which sets outside environment data for the object product to be designed a life evaluation part 24 which evaluates the life of each constitution component constituting the three-dimensional CAD data 11 according to the outside environment data, an LCA evaluation part 27 which evaluates the life cycle assessment of the object product to be designed according to the three-dimensional CAD data 11, and a control part 25 which outputs constitution components having short life in the increasing order of the life together with the life values according to the LAC evaluation result and life evaluation result and urges the redesigning of the object product to be designed which are adaptive to the constitution components having the short life and has replacing constitution components having longer life than the mentioned constitution components.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention evaluates the life of each component constituting a product to be designed from CAD data of the product to be designed, and further evaluates a life cycle assessment (LCA). The present invention relates to a life evaluation system that supports product design reflecting results.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art At present, vending machines such as beverage vending machines, which have spread to 2.6 million units, are in a situation where the relationship with the environment cannot be ignored due to the enormous spread rate and large power consumption. For this reason, vending machines are required to be friendly to the global environment and have social value.

On the other hand, in recent years, social design and development of industrial products in harmony with the global environment have been strongly demanded. In designing and developing such an industrial product, it is necessary to quantitatively grasp the environmental load of the industrial product. In order to realize this quantitative understanding, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA: Life
Cycle Assessment) is attracting attention.

[0004] LCA is a method for objectively assessing the impact of products and services on the environment over the entire life cycle from the extraction of resources to the manufacture, use, recycling, disposal and distribution of products. . LCA is specified in the ISO 14040 standard of the International Organization for Standardization, and has become the Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS Q 14040) as it is. This LCA is attracting attention as a tool for evaluating and improving the environmental load of the entire life cycle of products and the like.

[0005]

By the way, when the environmental load in the entire life cycle of a vending machine or the like is evaluated, the environmental load in the use stage occupies a large weight with respect to the environmental load in the entire life cycle. Therefore, the life of the vending machine has a great influence on the environmental load of the entire life cycle.

[0006] In this case, by replacing components that greatly affect the life of the vending machine, that is, components having a short life, with components having a long life, the overall life of the vending machine can be prolonged. Since this design change has been made based on experience and intuition, there has been a problem that a great deal of time and effort is required for the design change for extending the life.

In particular, the life of a product such as a vending machine greatly changes depending on the external environment in which the product is placed and the operating state, and therefore, the calculation of the life requires a great deal of time and labor.

On the other hand, the standardization of LCA evaluation is being actively pursued.
There is a trend to be required to satisfy the CA evaluation value, and there is a strong demand that a product satisfying the LCA evaluation can be designed in a short period of time.

[0009] The present invention has been made in view of the above,
A life evaluation system that can quickly and objectively calculate the life of each component by linking with the CAD data of the product to be designed, quickly change the design to extend the life, and perform LCA evaluation. The purpose is to provide.

[0010]

In order to achieve the above object, a life evaluation system according to claim 1 sets data acquisition means for acquiring CAD data of a product to be designed and external environment data for the product to be designed. Setting means;
A life evaluation means for evaluating the life of each component constituting the CAD data based on the external environment data; It has a life evaluation output means that outputs with the value, and it corresponds to the component with a short life,
Further, the present invention is characterized in that redesign of the product to be designed, which is replaced with a component having a longer life than the component, is promoted.

According to the first aspect of the present invention, the data acquisition means acquires CAD data of the product to be designed, the setting means sets external environment data for the product to be designed,
The life evaluation means performs the CA based on the external environment data.
The life of each component constituting the D data is evaluated, and the life evaluation output means outputs, based on the evaluation result by the life evaluation means, components having a short life together with the life value in order of short life, The present invention is adapted to cope with a component having a short life and promote redesign of the product to be designed, which is replaced with a component having a longer life than the component.

Further, the life evaluation system according to claim 2, in the above invention, the LCA evaluation means for evaluating a life cycle assessment of the product to be designed based on the CAD data acquired by the data acquisition means, L
LCA result output means for outputting an evaluation result by the CA evaluation means.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, the LCA evaluation means evaluates a life cycle assessment of the product to be designed based on the CAD data acquired by the data acquisition means, and the LCA result output means comprises: The evaluation result by the LCA evaluation means is output.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided the life evaluation system as set forth in the above invention, wherein the life cycle assessment value of the product to be designed satisfies a predetermined value.
An instruction output means for outputting an instruction to change the design of one or more components having a short life is further provided.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, the instruction output means instructs the design change of at least one component having a short life until the evaluation value of the life cycle assessment of the product to be designed satisfies a predetermined value. Output.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the above-mentioned invention, in the above-mentioned invention, a component database which is a database based on the length of the reference life and a component having the short life are replaced for each component. Search means for searching for a part from the component database is further provided, and the life evaluation output means or the instruction output means outputs the search result including the search result by the search means.

According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, the component parts database stores various component parts in a database according to the length of the reference life for each component part, and the search means operates the component parts having the short lifespan. Is searched from the component database, and the life evaluation output means or the instruction output means outputs the search result including the search result by the search means.

[0018]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of a life evaluation system according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an overall configuration of a life evaluation system according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG.
, The life evaluation system 1 is a system in which a CAD system 10 and a life evaluation device 20 cooperate.
The CAD system 10 and the life evaluation device 20 may be connected for communication via a communication line, or data may be transmitted / received via a storage medium or the like.

The CAD system is a computer-aided design system, and creates three-dimensional CAD data 11 of a product to be designed such as a vending machine. The three-dimensional CAD data 11 also includes attribute data such as component component data 12 of the component.

The life evaluation device 20 includes a CAD system 10
A data acquisition unit 21 for acquiring three-dimensional CAD data 11 from the side, a mass calculation unit 22 for calculating the mass of each component using the component component material data 12 and the like, and an external environment setting for setting external environment data for a product to be designed Unit 23, a life evaluation unit 24 for evaluating the life of components and the entire product, L
A storage unit 26 that stores a predetermined program such as a CA evaluation program and various data, an LCA evaluation unit 27 that performs LCA evaluation, and an output processing unit that performs output processing to an output unit 29 realized by a printer, a CRT display, or the like. 28, an input unit 30 realized by a keyboard, a mouse, and the like, a component parts database 31 in which various component parts are stored in a database based on a reference life ignoring the influence of the external environment, and a control unit 25 for controlling the above-described units.

Here, the procedure of the life evaluation process by this life evaluation system will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. In FIG. 2, first, the CAD system 10 creates three-dimensional CAD data 11 of a product to be designed (step S101). Then, the data acquisition unit 2
1 is three-dimensional CAD data 1 from the CAD system 10 side.
1 is obtained (step S102). The control unit 25 divides the three-dimensional CAD data 11 acquired by the data acquisition unit 21 for each component (step S103), and stores the divided data in the storage unit 26. It is preferable that the number of components is an appropriate number that eliminates duplication, is not too large, and is not too small. For example, the number of parts of a vending machine is 300
Although it is about 0 points, it can be roughly collected to about 500 points.

Thereafter, the LCA evaluator 37 stores the data in the storage 26
Using the LCA evaluation program stored in the
LCA evaluation is performed based on the component data of the AD data 11 (step S104). Further, it is determined whether or not the evaluation value of the LCA evaluation satisfies a predetermined condition (step S105). If the predetermined condition is satisfied (step S105, YES), the present process ends. On the other hand, when the predetermined condition is not satisfied (step S10
(5, NO), the process proceeds to step S106.

Here, the LCA evaluation method used is as follows.
The environmental load evaluation method described in Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-085399 is used. This environmental load evaluation method defines, for example, a common environmental load standard value that can be tolerated by human beings, and based on this environmental load standard value, quantitatively indicates the environmental load value of the product to be designed. I have to. Therefore, when this LCA evaluation method is used, the predetermined condition in step S105 described above is, for example, a condition of whether or not a predetermined environmental load value has been exceeded. In addition, not only this LCA evaluation method but another LCA evaluation method may be used.

In the LCA evaluation processing, weight calculation may be performed using the three-dimensional CAD data 11 when necessary. This is because, depending on the LCA evaluation method, the environmental load value is determined based on the weight of the material or the like.

Further, in this LCA evaluation process, in addition to the normal analysis stage, the LCA including reuse and recycling
A evaluation may be performed. By this,
A highly usable LCA evaluation can be obtained.

Thereafter, in step S106, the external environment is set by the external environment setting unit 23. The external environment refers to an environment such as an external temperature in which the product to be designed is arranged. After that, the life evaluation unit 24 extracts one component from the storage unit 26 and evaluates the life of the extracted component (step S107).

Thereafter, it is determined whether or not there are remaining components (step S108). If there are remaining components (step S108, YES), the remaining components are further selected from the storage unit 26. And take out (Step S1
09), the process proceeds to step S107, and the life of the component is evaluated.

On the other hand, if there is no remaining component (step S108, NO), the component with the shortest life is determined (step S110), and the component corresponding to this component is searched from the component database. Then, a list of alternative components having a long life (step S11)
1). As a result, the designer can easily find a component that can be replaced with a component that has the shortest life. In step S110, one component having the shortest life is determined. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and a plurality of components may be output in the order of short life. In this case, step S
In step 111, for each component output, components that have a long life and can be replaced are listed.

After that, the designer uses the CAD system 10 to redesign and incorporate the three-dimensional C
AD data is generated (step S112), and step S112 is performed.
The process proceeds to step 102, and the above-described processing is repeated.

In this manner, the component having the shortest life is easily found, and the redesign is repeated by incorporating the component having the long life as a substitute for this component, thereby satisfying the predetermined condition of the LCA evaluation. Products to be designed can be obtained quickly.

Here, a specific example of the life evaluation in step S107 will be described. FIG. 3 shows a vending machine 40.
FIG. In FIG. 3, the upper part of the vending machine 40 has a can 4 for sale in a storage surrounded by a heat insulating material 41.
2 is stored. In the refrigerator, a cooler (evaporator) 43 for cooling the refrigerator, a heater 44, and a fan motor 45 in the refrigerator are arranged. On the other hand, a compressor 46, a condenser fan motor 47, and a condenser 48 are provided below the vending machine 40, that is, outside the refrigerator.

In the vending machine 40, generally, the life of the fan motors such as the in-compartment fan motor 45 and the condenser fan motor 47 is short. The life of the fan motor changes depending on the temperature near the fan motor. That is, as shown in FIG. 4, as the temperature rises, the life of the fan motor becomes shorter.

The temperature in the vicinity of the fan motor varies greatly depending on the cooling period, heating period, operation time, opening / closing frequency, outside air temperature, and the like in the refrigerator. These conditions are set by the external environment setting unit 23 as external environment data.

On the other hand, the life is determined based on the failure rate of the fan motor. For example, the time when the failure rate reaches 65% is defined as the life of the fan motor. This failure rate can be represented by a so-called bathtub curve, and a particular problem is the final failure period. FIG. 5 shows the relationship between the time and the instantaneous failure rate during the terminal failure period.
FIG. 6 is a Weibull distribution diagram in which the relationship between time and the cumulative failure rate is logarithmically displayed. In the Weibull distribution map, the relationship between time and the cumulative failure rate can be linearly approximated.
Judge as the life of the fan motor.

The life evaluation by the life evaluation unit 24 is determined by interlocking these temperature parameters with the failure rate.
Therefore, the life evaluation unit 24 calculates the cumulative failure rate in consideration of the external environment data set by the external environment setting unit 23, and determines the life based on the result.

[0037]

As described above, according to the first aspect of the present invention, the data acquisition means acquires CAD data of a product to be designed, the setting means sets external environment data for the product to be designed, The life evaluation means evaluates the life of each component constituting the CAD data based on the external environment data, and the life evaluation output means has a short life based on the evaluation result by the life evaluation means. In order to output the components together with the life value in the order of shorter life, to cope with the components having the shorter life, and to promote the redesign of the product to be designed which has been replaced with a component having a longer life than the component. Therefore, there is an effect that it is possible to quickly and objectively calculate the life of each component and make a design change for extending the life quickly.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, the LCA evaluation means evaluates the life cycle assessment of the product to be designed based on the CAD data acquired by the data acquisition means, and the LCA result output means comprises: Since the result of the evaluation by the LCA evaluation means is output, there is an effect that the LCA evaluation can be performed simultaneously in association with the life evaluation.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, the instruction output means changes the design of at least one component having a short life until the evaluation value of the life cycle assessment of the product to be designed satisfies a predetermined value. Since the instruction is output, it is possible to quickly design a product that satisfies the LCA evaluation.

According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, the component database stores various component parts in a database according to the length of the reference life for each component, and the search means stores the component having the short life. A component to replace a component is searched from the component database, and the life evaluation output means or the instruction output means outputs a search result including the search result by the search means. There is an effect that a product satisfying the LCA evaluation value can be quickly and easily designed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an overall configuration of a life evaluation system according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a life evaluation processing procedure by the life evaluation system shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a vertical sectional view of the vending machine.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a relationship between life and temperature.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a change in an instantaneous failure rate with respect to time.

FIG. 6 is a Weibull distribution diagram showing a change in a cumulative failure rate with respect to time.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 life evaluation system 10 CAD system 11 three-dimensional CAD data 12 component material data 20 life evaluation device 21 data acquisition unit 22 mass calculation unit 23 external environment setting unit 24 life evaluation unit 25 control unit 26 storage unit 27 LCA evaluation unit 28 output Processing unit 29 Output unit 30 Input unit 31 Component database

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (72) Inventor Tatsuya Kobayashi 1-1, Tanabe-Nitta, Kawasaki-ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture Inside Fuji Electric Co., Ltd. No. 1 Fuji Electric Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Koji Akatsuka 1-1, Tanabe-Nitta, Kawasaki-ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa F-term within Fuji Electric Co., Ltd. 5B046 AA07 CA00 GA01 GA02 KA06

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A data acquisition means for acquiring CAD data of a product to be designed, a setting means for setting external environment data for the product to be designed, and each component constituting the CAD data based on the external environment data And a life evaluation output means for outputting, based on the evaluation result by the life evaluation means, components having short lives together with life values in order of short life, and having a short life. A life evaluation system, which is adapted to a component and promotes redesign of the product to be designed in which the component has a longer life than the component. 2. An LCA evaluation unit for evaluating a life cycle assessment of the product to be designed based on the CAD data acquired by the data acquisition unit; an LCA result output unit for outputting an evaluation result by the LCA evaluation unit; The life evaluation system according to claim 1, further comprising: 3. An instruction output means for outputting an instruction for design change of at least one component having a short life until an evaluation value of a life cycle assessment of the product to be designed satisfies a predetermined value. The life evaluation system according to claim 2. 4. A component part database which is made into a database according to the length of a reference life for each component part, and a search means for searching the component part database for a component part replacing the component part having the short life. The life evaluation system according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the life evaluation output means or the instruction output means outputs the search result including the search result by the search means.