Design for Disassembly

Design for Disassembly is a design method that takes disassembly for easier maintenance, repair, recovery and reuse of components/materials into account from the very start.
Reducing waste in the manufacturing and recovery processes using DfD techniques can significantly reduce production costs and allow for greater technical efficiency. Modular design principles within DfD techniques allow for greater flexibility during product development, shorter development timescales and reduced development costs. Implementing DfD into a design specification allows the product and its components to be better suited for re-use or recycling when it has reached its end of life, thus reducing the scale of resources required to create new products.

Principles

When designing products with disassembly in mind, there are three important factors which must be considered by the designer:

• The selection and use of materials


• The design of components and product architecture


• The selection and use of fasteners

Important here is to minimise the number of components used in an assembly, either by integrating parts or through system re-design and to minimise the number of material types used in an assembly.
The actual period when the product is used by the consumer could be seen as a small step within a fast-turning product life-cycle, so the key to successful DfD lies in maintaining flexibility within assemblies, easy component separation and easy access to parts.

To summarise:

• Choose recycling-compatible materials (as far as possible)


• Avoid using materials which require separating before recycling (re-use is OK, subject to performance testing)


• Use as few components and component types as possible (without compromising the structural integrity or function of the product)


• Integrate components (which relate to the same function) where possible


• Standardise the use of fasteners – use commonly available parts and maintain consistency within the design


• Make components easily separable


• Apply non-contaminating markings (e.g. through etching or moulding) to materials for ease of sorting


• Maintain good access to components and fasteners. Consider making the plane of access to components the same for all components