Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Truck Steel Wheels

Abstract. The automotive industry is one of the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, various solutions are sought in automotive products that will eliminate their negative impact on the environment. The objective of the article was to analyze the environmental impact of a truck steel wheel during its life cycle (LCA) in terms of ecological footprint. The method was life cycle assessment (LCA) according to ISO 14040. The environmental impact analysis was carried out using the OpenLCA program with the ecoinvent v3.10 database. The ecological footprint included impacts for the following categories: carbon dioxide (CO2), land occupation, and nuclear. The total impact on the life cycle of the analyzed truck wheel (with the adopted assumptions) in terms of ecological footprint was estimated at 7.31E+09 m2a. The main environmental burdens were: heat production, heat and power cogeneration, uranium production, electricity production, and underground uranium mine’s operation. The results may be useful for improving the processes for creating steel truck wheels. Therefore, future research will focus on developing and analyzing different scenarios of steel truck wheel solutions for the main environmental loads identified from the ecological footprint.