Comparative life cycle assessment of lifetime extension strategies for forwarder cranes : a case study on the PATU 655 using Re-X solutions
Gamage, Nipunika Shashikala (2025)
Diplomityö
2025
School of Energy Systems, Ympäristötekniikka
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2025063075592
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2025063075592
Tiivistelmä
The forest industry is significant in Finland and many other countries, driving up the demand for forest machinery and prompting the manufacture of new equipment. New machinery manufacturing is a highly resource-intensive process. Forwarder cranes are an important forest machinery used to collect and transport logs from the forest to the roadside. Extending the lifetime of forwarder cranes at their end-of-life (EoL) stage avoids new machinery manufacturing. This study aims to evaluate the environmental impacts of the application of value-retaining strategies for extending the lifetime of forwarder cranes at the EoL stage and second life after remanufacturing.
A life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted to compare the environmental impacts of two scenarios, namely the business-as-usual (BAU) scenario and the remanufacturing scenario (ReM), focusing on global warming potential (GWP). BAU scenario evaluates the impacts from current practices, which mainly involve recycling, and the ReM scenario examines the application of a higher-level circularity approach via remanufacturing for value retention at the EoL stage of the PATU 655 forwarder crane, which is the case study of this research. The results show that both the BAU scenario and the ReM scenario have a net negative impact of -2740 kg CO2-eq. and -4850 kg CO2-eq., respectively. Remanufacturing of PATU 655 reduces 40% of the impacts of manufacturing a new crane. The 13-year second life use phase results in a net impact of 900 t CO2-eq., and diesel combustion accounts for 79 % of that impact. Sensitivity analysis shows that if virgin steel replaced by recycled steel, the net impact of “like new” crane manufacturing is reduced by 50%.
The findings emphasise that remanufacturing of forwarder cranes has significant environmental benefits over current disposal practices, as well as new machinery manufacturing. Adapting to more sustainable fuel consumption in the use phase of forwarder cranes is suggested for aligning with the sustainability goals of the Finnish forest industry.
A life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted to compare the environmental impacts of two scenarios, namely the business-as-usual (BAU) scenario and the remanufacturing scenario (ReM), focusing on global warming potential (GWP). BAU scenario evaluates the impacts from current practices, which mainly involve recycling, and the ReM scenario examines the application of a higher-level circularity approach via remanufacturing for value retention at the EoL stage of the PATU 655 forwarder crane, which is the case study of this research. The results show that both the BAU scenario and the ReM scenario have a net negative impact of -2740 kg CO2-eq. and -4850 kg CO2-eq., respectively. Remanufacturing of PATU 655 reduces 40% of the impacts of manufacturing a new crane. The 13-year second life use phase results in a net impact of 900 t CO2-eq., and diesel combustion accounts for 79 % of that impact. Sensitivity analysis shows that if virgin steel replaced by recycled steel, the net impact of “like new” crane manufacturing is reduced by 50%.
The findings emphasise that remanufacturing of forwarder cranes has significant environmental benefits over current disposal practices, as well as new machinery manufacturing. Adapting to more sustainable fuel consumption in the use phase of forwarder cranes is suggested for aligning with the sustainability goals of the Finnish forest industry.