Integration of life cycle assessment and life cycle costing for the eco-design of rubber products

Rubber hoses are a category of rubber products that are widely and intensively employed in construction sites for concrete conveying. There has been lack of study to investigate the life cycle environmental and economic impacts of the rubber hoses as an industrial product. In this study, we analyze four types of rubber hoses with the inner layer made of different rubber composites to resist abrasion, i.e., Baseline, S-I, S-II and S-III. Tests of the wear resistance are carried out in the laboratory and S-III shows high abrasion resisting performance with the concrete conveying volume up to 20,000 m(3) during the service life. Life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) models are established for evaluating the four types of rubber hoses. A target function is developed to integrate LCA and LCC by converting the LCA results to the environmental costs. It is found that S-III can save 13% total cost comparing to Baseline. The production stage is the largest contributor to the environmental single score, while the use stage is the largest contributor to the life cycle cost. Sensitivity analyses are conducted and the results of this study are validated with the previous studies. The integrated method of LCA and LCC developed in this study paves a way for the eco-design of industrial rubber hoses and is potentially applicable to other rubber products.