Development of a Methodology for the Determination of Conceptual Automated Disassembly Systems

Abstract

At a certain point in its life cycle, a product will reach a condition where it partly or completely loses its functionality. When this happens, the disassembly has the ambition to regenerate a product-value or to enable an environmental friendly product recycling. With regard to the high workload and costs for manual labor one approach to increase the productivity of disassembly tasks is the use of automated disassembly systems (ADS). Depending on different life cycle scenarios, requirements on automated disassembly systems vary. Concerning this problem, a general methodology is developed, which enables the determination of a conceptual ADS by assigning automated modules that are processing the product disassembly. In the first place the objective of a disassembly is determined, followed by a closer investigation of the product. Thereby target components are defined, which has to disassembled. By looking at the connections between these target components suitable separation procedures are derived. Finally, modules of the automated disassembly system are determined.