Remake, Reuse, Repair, Recycle

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This course builds upon the first-year courses Engineering in a Circular Economy and Fundamentals of Engineering, and has a link to the second- year courses Management Skills and Reversed Engineering and Refurbishing Skills. This interdisciplinary course is suitable for all concentrations as it introduces you to the details and practicalities of the so-called 4R’s, which is a key concept in circular engineering. You are encouraged to apply the four R’s as being representative for the technology circularity. To achieve this, you work in teams to solve four cases, each being representative for one R. Possible topics are reuse of clothing, repair of surgical instruments, remake of coffee machines and recycling of plastic bottles. You approach each case by searching and studying relevant background information and example solutions applied in similar products. You need to quickly familiarize yourself with the case and study technology aspects that are new to them (production engineering, materials engineering, assembly engineering). To this end, you are guided to relevant databases, books and journal papers. To solve the cases, you select and apply one of the circular design methods which should encompass all technical aspects such as resources, logistics, (re)design, production, material selection, energy use and waste streams. Where possible, the full footprint should be fully disclosed. You should support your solution by a solid line of reasoning, basic calculations, experimental or computational evidence.