Towards a Sustainable Disassembly/Dismantling in Aerospace Industry

The quality of recycled material in a recycling process is actively influenced by an appropriate disassembly/dismantling strategy. In recycling the carcass of the aircraft, it is suitable to separate and classify different aluminum grades into their main alloys family before sending them to recycling center. However, due to complexity in the aircraft structure, fully disassembly/dismantling or fully shredding the aircraft is not economically or environmentally viable, respectively. For this reason, this work discusses eight different disassembly/dismantling strategies that have been done on a real Bombardier Regional Jet aircraft. The study proposes an approach to assess the sustainability influence of these strategies, as an important parameter that should be considered to select the most suitable strategy. This concept can be improved in order to be used in aerospace industry as an accurate method that allows to take the best decision depending on the concurrent situation.