Material Science
Prof. Satish V. Kailas
Associate Professor
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering,
Indian Institute of Science,
Bangalore – 560012
India
Chapter 18. Economic, Environmental and Social issues of
material usage
Engineering materials are important in everyday life because of their versatile structural
and physical properties. Selection of the engineering materials is dependent on these
properties. However, choice of material has implications throughout the life-cycle of a
product, influencing many aspects of economic and environmental performance. In other
words, different material issues are needed to be dealt with during material selection if
the product is to be commercially successful and competitive in the market. These special
considerations are related to their cost, production cost, environmental and social issues
like pollution, disposal, recycling, etc. This chapter deals with these special issues of
material selection.
18.1 Economic considerations
Engineering profession deals with utilization of scientific and technological advances to
design and manufacture components and systems that perform reliably and satisfactorily.
However, there are economics as the driving force behind it. Economics of engineering a
component / system depends on three factors: component design, material usage, and
manufacturing costs. These three factors are inter-related in the sense that one or two
might influence the choice of others.
Initially any component / system need to go through conception and then design stage.
This includes generation of concept about the component / system. Later on design stage
takes care of its size, shape, and configuration which will influence the performance of it
during the service. Usually engineers deal with not a single component, but with complex
assembly of components / a system. Thus, each component needs to be designed for
greater efficiency of the system. This may some times act as constraint to optimal design
of a component. Hence, design