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Remanufacturing and Advanced Machining
of components. For instance, “tailored blanks” denote sheet products characterized
by a local variation of sheet thickness, sheet material, coating, or material properties.
The concept of tailored blanks can be divided into four subgroups, namely tailor
welded blanks (joining materials with different grades, thicknesses, or coatings by a
welding process), patchwork blanks (locally reinforcing a blank by adding another),
tailor rolled blanks (continuous variation of sheet thickness achieved by a rolling
process), and tailor heat-treated blanks (material properties adapted by a local heat
treatment) (Merklein et al., 2014). Furthermore, combinations of steel with light
metals or plastics are increasingly applied to lightweight constructions (Böllinghaus
et al., 2009).
1.13.1 remarks on general Trends
According to Middeldorf and von Hofe (2008), it is crucial to take the following
issues into consideration in technical design: availability of a large and increasing
variety of structural materials, increasing requirements of component remanufacturability, and effective recycling of EoL products. In this respect, they formulated
several important remarks:
• Nowadays, both investment goods such as building structures, all types of
vehicles, installations, and machines, and everyday consumer goods like
furniture, household appliances, and electronic devices consist of a multitude of various materials. These materials joined together provide combinations of functional characteristics and resource savings. Thus, different
materials are gathered not only in a device or another product but also in
smaller units or even single components. This is possible only on the condition that a joint meets all functional requirements, such as strength, ductility, hardness, corrosion resistance, etc.
• Rapid increase of structural materials with enhanced properties, and especially new materials with special properties, generates demand for appropriate joining technologies. For example, a combination of textile fibers
with concrete, or nanoparticles with plastics, provides qualitatively new
materials which require a completely new joining technology to be integrated into a component.
• Computational technologies make it possible to predict functional characteristics of parts or units made of new materials, thereby rapidly expanding
areas of their implementation.
• When new materials and joining processes are designed, it is crucial to consider the possibility of their recovery in the early phase of exploitation. On
the one hand, a damaged component should be recycled, and on the other,
reuse and remanufacturing may return it to a working engineering system.
• Perhaps today it appears to be economically profitable to replace a damaged component with a new one, yet from a wider perspective this contradicts any resource-saving strategy. In the context of transition to circular
economy, recovery questions will arise again and again.
Remanufacturing and Advanced Machining
of components. For instance, “tailored blanks” denote sheet products characterized
by a local variation of sheet thickness, sheet material, coating, or material properties.
The concept of tailored blanks can be divided into four subgroups, namely tailor
welded blanks (joining materials with different grades, thicknesses, or coatings by a
welding process), patchwork blanks (locally reinforcing a blank by adding another),
tailor rolled blanks (continuous variation of sheet thickness achieved by a rolling
process), and tailor heat-treated blanks (material properties adapted by a local heat
treatment) (Merklein et al., 2014). Furthermore, combinations of steel with light
metals or plastics are increasingly applied to lightweight constructions (Böllinghaus
et al., 2009).
1.13.1 remarks on general Trends
According to Middeldorf and von Hofe (2008), it is crucial to take the following
issues into consideration in technical design: availability of a large and increasing
variety of structural materials, increasing requirements of component remanufacturability, and effective recycling of EoL products. In this respect, they formulated
several important remarks:
• Nowadays, both investment goods such as building structures, all types of
vehicles, installations, and machines, and everyday consumer goods like
furniture, household appliances, and electronic devices consist of a multitude of various materials. These materials joined together provide combinations of functional characteristics and resource savings. Thus, different
materials are gathered not only in a device or another product but also in
smaller units or even single components. This is possible only on the condition that a joint meets all functional requirements, such as strength, ductility, hardness, corrosion resistance, etc.
• Rapid increase of structural materials with enhanced properties, and especially new materials with special properties, generates demand for appropriate joining technologies. For example, a combination of textile fibers
with concrete, or nanoparticles with plastics, provides qualitatively new
materials which require a completely new joining technology to be integrated into a component.
• Computational technologies make it possible to predict functional characteristics of parts or units made of new materials, thereby rapidly expanding
areas of their implementation.
• When new materials and joining processes are designed, it is crucial to consider the possibility of their recovery in the early phase of exploitation. On
the one hand, a damaged component should be recycled, and on the other,
reuse and remanufacturing may return it to a working engineering system.
• Perhaps today it appears to be economically profitable to replace a damaged component with a new one, yet from a wider perspective this contradicts any resource-saving strategy. In the context of transition to circular
economy, recovery questions will arise again and again.