Research On Evaluation And Design Of Bamboo Furniture Based On Life Cycle Assessment Theory

In recent years, with the increasing development process of urbanization, rapid development of industrial economy society, accelerated consumption rate of resources and energy, more and more serious environmental pollutions appeared. Resource depletion, ecosystem destruction and pollution have become environmental problems to restrict economic development in the world. As the product-oriented environmental assessment and management tool, LCA theory focus on environmental impact of entire production stage caused from raw materials’seek, manufacture, use up to waste.According to actual production data obtained from enterprise, this article will use SimaPro software to evaluate and compare the entire life cycle of glued laminated bamboo armchair and restructured bamboo round-backed armchair under the direction of the framework of LCA theory. It aims to establish the most serious environmental impact process and corresponding impact categories part during the life cycle, and it’s helpful for furniture products to design and improve.For glued laminated bamboo armchair A, the results show that the most serious stage to environmental impact of production processes is board manufacturing stage, the minor stage is product creating stage, followed by bamboo manufacturing stage. Throughout the life cycle, serious effects to human health are produced in bamboo production stage, board manufacturing stage,product creating stage, using phase in turn; as serious damage to the ecosystem quality, board manufacturing stage is the maximum part, then product creating stage, bamboo manufacturing stage and using phases followed; as damage to resource, the most serious stage is board manufacturing stage, bamboo manufacturing stage, product creating stage and using phase followed. Due to higher utilization in recycling and incineration stage and with the use of heat in product waste stage, the environmental impact has the positive effect.For restructured bamboo round-backed armchair B, the most serious stage is board manufacturing stage, then product creating stage and bamboo manufacturing stage in turn. Of three damage types, the most serious impact on human health is board manufacturing stage the second one is bamboo manufacturing stage, and final one is product creating stage; with impact on resource consumption, the biggest environmental impact stage is board manufacturing stage, and product creating stage, bamboo manufacturing stage and using phase are followed in turn; with impact on the ecosystem quality, the maximum stage is board manufacturing stage, and product creating stage, bamboo manufacturing stage and using phase are followed in turn. Due to less water and transport consumption in using phase, environment impact is little. Thanks to recycling of heat in the waste stage of product, the impact on the environment has the positive effect.Two chairs are compared during the production process of whole life cycle in the next part of this article, results show that board manufacturing stage produced the largest environmental impact during three stages of both of two products’production process. Based on contrast of entire life cycle, production process of restructured bamboo round-backed armchair have more severely effects than production process of glued laminated bamboo armchair, indicating that despite utilization of raw materials production process of glued laminated bamboo armchair are low, bamboo manufacturing stage and board manufacturing stage to environmental load is large, in terms of the whole life cycle, environmental impact caused by glued laminated bamboo armchair are lower.One important application of life cycle assessment is to guide the design of product. We can improve the design of production based on the evaluation results and suggestions. Therefore, according to the above results, the paper also discuss eco-design furniture from the perspective of structure and process, we would like have a better understanding of environmental friendliness of bamboo, make better use of bamboo and promote the further development of bamboo furniture industry.The purpose of this study is to guide design of products, based on the evaluation results, from the source of production-the design stage, suggestions can be targeted for improvement. According to the results, from the choice of materials, structure and process, eco-design of bamboo furniture should minimize the use of raw materials, adhesives and coatings should select environmental friendly, simplied the structure possibly, affirmed the standard removable folding modular production, with the product in the case, analysis the problems that may arise during process, and from the point of production the example of the production process improvements are given. We would like have a better understanding of environmental friendliness of bamboo, make better use of bamboo and promote the further development of bamboo furniture industry.