A study on the environmentally sustainable railway vehicle through analysing its recyclability

초록

Recent international environmental regulations are focusing on the pre-contamination reduction and sustainable development from the usage stage of the product. Currently, railway manufacturers are forced to submit the life cycle environmental performance of each product according to the UIC 345 code because recyclability is one of the environmental performance indexes of railway vehicle The objective of this paper is to investigate the potential recyclability and recoverability of railway vehicle which is conceived as relatively environmentally friendly transportation mode. Among various railway vehicle, in this study, inter-regional railway vehicle is selected and dismantled according to the procedure of ISO 22628. As a result, it is found that current recyclability of railway vehicle can’t meet the requirements of ELV directive and ecodesign considering disassembly is required to apply at the design stage to make it more environmentally friendly.