Design for Product Embedded Disassembly

This paper presents a computational method for designing assemblies with a built-in disassembly pathway that maximizes the profit of disassembly while satisfying regulatory requirements for component retrieval. Given component revenues and components to be retrieved, the method simultaneously determines the spatial configurations of components and locator features on the components, such that the product can be disassembled in the most profitable sequence, via a domino-like “self-disassembly” process triggered by the removal of one or a few fasteners. The problem is posed as optimization and a multi-objective genetic algorithm is utilized to search for Pareto-optimal designs in terms of three objectives: 1) the satisfaction of distance specification among components, 2) the efficient use of locator features on components, and 3) the profit of overall disassembly process under the regulatory requirements. A case study with different costs for removing fasteners demonstrates the effectiveness of the method in generating design alternatives under various disassembly scenarios.