Towards a design-to-sustainability platform based on functional representations and simplified geometric layouts

Sustainability is becoming one of the main drivers of the modern product and system design. However, sustainability assessments are usually carried out at the end of the design process to check the validity of the decisions already taken. As a consequence, when targets are not achieved, numerous time-consuming iteration loops are necessary to optimize the initial solution. The paper merges functional-based and design-to-cost approaches to propose a CAD-based platform able to assess product lifecycle costs and impacts from the earliest design stages by configuring and assessing feasible design solutions. It considers both economic expenses and environmental impacts during all phases of product lifecycle on the basis of the company knowledge.