The aim of the project is to redesign an adjustable table in collaboration with the company Form O Miljö from Stockholm, which develops, produces and markets high-quality furniture and interior design for public environments . The table is part of a biomechanical project developed by the company. It´s focus is school environments and designed for the students. The idea comes from the problems observed in children while using electronic devices or study in the current tables and a later ergonomic study about it. The bachelor thesis consists of looking for a new design that fits in its market, catches the users interest and meets his or her needs in order to be successful. Therefore, it is a project that has been carried out from a human-centered design approach. The result is a table adjustable in height thanks to the lifting system implemented, that has a drawer to store stuff and a tilting support for electronic devices. All its characteristics makes this new desk an innovative product in the market that fulfils the users’ requirements and solves the problems analyzed.

Travelling children is the topic of my work. Children who commute between more than one home. Society is rapidly changing and so is the concept â familyâ . The nuclear family is no longer the most common one. Children are now travelling more frequently than ever. One fifth of the Swedish population are children, they are away from home approximately ten hours per day, and for many of them commuting is part of their everyday life. Typical questions I have asked myself during this project are: How do children find travelling by themselves, and what makes one feel safe in this big world? What do these children take with them, and how do they carry their luggage? By working with these questions I have developed a product for these lone travellers. This is supposed to work as a substitute companion during the journey, and to help break monotony. To achieve this, a suitable collection of things have been put together in a bag on wheels, easy for the child to manoeuvre. The contents of the bag are put together in an attempt to meet different needs the child might have during the journey. The idea was born during a project in collaboration with The BorÃ¥s Museum of Art. This project went under the nameâ the designed childâ . Design students were invited to visualise the concept of design and children. Thoughts about what I had lacked as a child triggered my imagination. Different concepts like tweenies and kidaults, made me think about which part children play in society today, and about how they are regarded as consumers by manufacturers of producers for children. A research trip to India, gave me a chance to study the environmental aspects of the textile industry today. This together with earlier knowledge led to a product which is to be made from alternative materials. Research concerning the product market today, both environmentally friendly materials and products for children, took place at the very beginning of the project, and continued throughout the period. Thoughts about how products for children look today led to an ambition of creating a product as neutral, gender wise, as possible. A great deal of thought was put into the selecting of colours and patterns. The character of a bird was chosen as a symbol for the travelling child. Observations of children and their behaviour whilst travelling were carried out, and used for developing the product. To travel alone means to be alert and to be aware of danger. In this world of fear I would like to emphasize joyfulness and play. I wish to communicate that home is where the heart is. / <p>Program: Textildesignutbildningen</p><p>Uppsatsnivå: C</p>

Sustainable consumption has become a crucial factor to consider for both consumers and manufacturing firms. Green marketing practices, or marketing activities aimed at decreasing the impact on the environment, have been incorporated into many business plans to combat old habits of wastefulness and pollution. One very popular method that has come to prominence over the recent years is eco-labeling of products and services. Eco-labels are logos that represent that a product or service has met standardized criteria set by a certifying organization and that it is deemed a sustainable option in its product category. The focus of this study will center-on well-known and established eco-labels in the Swedish market, namely the Swan, Bra Miljöval, KRAV, EU-Ecolabel and the Marine Stewardship Council eco-labels. Eco-labels are tools for communication which can be used to facilitate the practice of sustainable consumption. However, there are many factors that influence the consumer’s ability to understand the message of the eco-label which in turn can affect their capacity to adopt the sustainable behavior. The purpose of this study is to determine if Swedish consumers understand the eco-label’s message and if this message affects their green purchasing. These results were related to message quality as defined by the International Standards Organization 14063 standard for environmental communication (2004 cited in Strömdahl, 2005, p. 15; Von Ahn &amp; Wikström, 2005, p. 33-34) and other notable factors found from a literature review. The following research questions were answered: • Do consumers understand the message of an eco-label?      o What are the factors related to understanding the eco-label? • Do awareness and understanding affect purchase behavior of and eco-label?      o What are the factors related to the purchase of eco-labeled products? A quantitative approach has been used in this research project and a survey has been administered at supermarkets in the Umeå area. To confirm the message of the eco-labels, a semi-structured interview was conducted with the issuing organizations prior to designing the questionnaire. A total of 152 responses were collected from the survey and analyzed with frequency distributions, independent sample t-tests and contingency tables where a significance level of chi-square of .05 or lower was required. The results of the study indicate that customer understanding and purchase behavior varied by each eco-label. Message quality can have a significant impact on understanding of the eco-label. Also, other personal factors were related to understanding and purchase behavior with nationality giving evidence of the strongest relationship.

Trivalent chromium conversion coatings formed on Al and Al-Cu alloys has been investigated using high-resolution, analytical electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, ion beam analysis, glow discharge optical emission spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical noise analysis. These coatings on the electropolished Al and sputtering-deposed Al consist of a chromium- and zirconium-rich outer layer and a thinner, aluminium-rich inner layer. Zirconium and chromium are presented in chemical states consistent with ZrO2, Cr(OH)3, Cr2(SO4)3, CrF3 and CrO3 or CrO42-. However, negligible amounts of hexavalent chromium species occurred in both coatings formed in de-aerated solution. On AA2024-T351 alloys, the coating above the second phase particles was thicker than that on the matrix due to the increased localized alkalinity. Moreover, the localized corrosion and copper enrichment of the matrix occurred at the coating base. The presence of copper resulted in a thinner coating at the matrix compared with superpure aluminium. An Fe(III)-containing D30 desmutter can effectively remove the protruded particles generated by alkaline etching. Moreover, a thinner oxide film on the D30-treated surface was evidenced to promote the coating initiation on the matrix. Further, the coating comprised the concentrated zirconium oxyfluorides and decreased contents of aluminium and copper. Coated alloys displayed a significantly enhanced corrosion protection, especially the cathoidc inhibition. In terms of coating post-treatments, the water immersion (40 ºC, pH 5) soon after conversion treatment revealed a simple but effective process to improve the fluoride enrichment in coatings and to enhance corrosion protection of freshly-developed coatings. Increasing concentration of solid-solution copper in sputtering-deposited alloys, in a range of 2, 24, 40 and 64 at.%Cu, significantly promotes the coating growth kinetics and an evident and a thicker corrosion layer by substrate dissolution was observed on Al-40 at.%Cu alloys. In addition, the relationship of copper-rich deposits with Cr(VI) transformation was demonstrated by Raman spectroscopy.

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This reports describes a master thesis project in Industrial Design Engineering at Lulea University of Technology in collaboration with Clas Ohlson.The master thesis was performed during 2015/2016 and is part of a product development project at Clas Ohlson aiming to develop a new kind of solar powered out door light. Clas Ohlson have limited experience with in house product development, and this project could be a pilot project to evaluate future in house product development.This projects main focus is the creative parts of the product development process and the detail development.The product developed resulted in a product with high customisation potential in many aspects including aesthetic, mounting, electronic and packaging.The resulting material, such as CAD-files, is handed over to Clas Ohlson for them to adjust if necessary in order to take the result in to production. The starting point is the company ́s desire to comply with one of their main objectives: provide sustainable products.The desire was for me to develop a solar powered outdoor light.The result is a module based system which can be expanded in multiple ways, from changing the function, to changing the appearance. In the chapter results you also find a suggested launch plan showing the width of the presented solution and the many opportunities the end user would have to upgrade their product without generating excessive waste.

The disposal of electronic waste is becoming one of the growing problems that the planet is facing. Tons of electronic waste is dumped illegally to 3rd world countries. Consequently the local people in those countries are exposed to levels of toxicity that could cause them serious diseases as well as the degradation on the natural ecosystems. The electronic waste is perceived as useless by our society, and this project aims to challenge that idea by looking at sustainable ways of manipulating electronics.

Vibration isolation is a common approach to reduce the undesired vibration of a dynamic system from its surrounding. The common material used for the vibration isolator is rubber (for example) which is known to be environmentally unfriendly. This thesis presents a study on the use of corrugated cardboard for the vibration isolator, which is known to be a highly environment-friendly material. The focus of the study is on understanding and modeling of stiffness and damping of cardboard when it or its system (several cardboards) is used for isolating the vibration coming from the vertical direction of cardboard. In this thesis, a study is presented of finite element modeling of stiffness of corrugated cardboard in its vertical direction with the aim of overcoming two major shortcomings in modeling in the current literature: (1) the width effect is neglected even for cardboard with its width greater than length and (2) the non-linear constitutive relation is not accurately determined. Indeed, it is likely that these shortcomings are responsible for inaccuracy with the models in the current literature to predict the stiffness and peak load. Further, a test bed was set up for the measurement of damping of cardboards in this study. This thesis also presents an application of the theoretic development in the stiffness and damping of corrugated cardboard to design an isolator for the vacuum pump at Canadian Light Source. Several conclusions are drawn from this study: (1) modeling with consideration of the width effect and non-linear constitutive relation is necessary to improve the accuracy of prediction of stiffness of cardboard; (2) set up for the measurement of damping of cardboard is accurate; and (3) cardboard systems are feasible for vibration isolation in terms of the reduction of amplitude of vibration. The contribution of this thesis includes: (1) providing a finite element method for modeling of corrugated cardboards which have a complex non-linear constitutive relation, variable contact configuration, and 3D geometrical effect and (2) providing the feasibility of proving that corrugated cardboard can be used for vibration isolation.

Buildings generate millions of tons of greenhouse gases, toxic air emissions, water pollutants and solid wastes that contribute to negative environmental impacts. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a methodology for assessing the environmental performance of products over their life time. However, many building products are discarded much before the end of their service life, especially as a result of refurbishment and renovation projects. The need for such projects is increasing because most buildings are not designed to accommodate changes in their functions and needs of their occupants. This is particular to commercial buildings, especially hospitality facilities, which are unique with regard to operational schemes and the type of services offered that are highly resource-intensive. In this investigation, statistical data related to refurbishment and renovation projects in Turkey were analysed to determine the percentage of refurbishment projects for hotels. Bills of quantities for refurbishment projects of three five-star hotels in Ankara were obtained and evaluated with regard to the volume and type of material discarded as a result of the renovation works. ATHENA, an LCA software, was used to evaluate these projects according to the six environmental impact indicators: primary energy consumption, solid waste, air pollution index, water pollution index, global warming potential and weighted resource use. A system was formulated for evaluating materials according to each indicator by calculating their &ldquo / eco-scores&rdquo / the total score is considered to be the yard-stick for comparing environmental appropriateness of these materials. Finally, recommendations on the choice of materials were made, with an aim to reducing material waste and harmful emissions.

The interest in renewable natural resources, including plant oils, has become increasingly appealing due to the oil abundance, availability, and wide range of applications for polymers and polymeric materials thereof. In this dissertation, a library of plant oil-based acrylic monomers (POBMs) with a broad range of unsaturation was synthesized using a one-step transesterification. It is demonstrated that the unsaturation degree of plant oil remains preserved during the synthesis and determines the structure and properties of POBMs. The life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted in this study to evaluate the environmental impact of soybean oil-based acrylic monomer (SBM) production. LCA was applied to provide guidance for SBM synthesis optimization, including the type of catalyst, the ratio between reactants, renewable sources (soybean oil/biodiesel), and solvent recycling. The performed LCA shows the positive effect of the inclusion of the solvent recycling step in the SBM synthesis. This study shows that POBMs behave as conventional vinyl monomers in free radical polymerization and copolymerization. The monomer unsaturation impacts polymerization rate and molecular weight of resulted polymers decreasing as follows: poly(OVM) > poly(SFM) > poly(SBM) > poly(LSM), due allylic termination presented during polymerization. A series of stable POBM-based latexes with high solid content (40-45 %) and monomer conversion (95-97 %) were synthesized using miniemulsion process. The incorporation of POBMs fragments provides the plasticizing effect on the resulting latex polymers, as seen by a noticeable decrease in their glass transition temperature (Tg). The crosslink density of POBM-based latex films follows the linear dependence vs. monomer feed unsaturation, providing a tool for controlling latex mechanical properties, including hardness, toughness, Young's modulus, etc. Besides, the presence of highly hydrophobic POBM fragments enhances water resistivity of latex coatings and films. Following the "greener" vector of research, a variety of stable latexes from high oleic soybean oil-based monomer (HOSBM) and cardanol, eugenol, and guaiacol derivatives were synthesized in miniemulsion. Resulting polymeric materials advantageously combine flexibility provided by HOSBM fragments with strength facilitated by aromatic biobased units.