The present study proposes an economic indicator to support the evaluation of aircraft End of Life (EoL) strategies in view of the increasing demand with regards to aircraft decommissioning. This indicator can be used to evaluate the economic performance and to facilitate the trade-off studies among different strategies. First, Disposal and Recycle (D&R) scenarios related to stakeholders are investigated to identify the core concepts for the economic evaluation. Next, we extracted the aircraft D&R process from various real-life practices. In order to obtain the economic measure for the engineering process, a method of estimating the D&R cost and values are developed by integrating product, process and cost properties. This analysis is demonstrated on an averaged data set and two EoL aircraft cases. In addition, sensitivity analysis is performed to evaluate the impact of the D&R cost, residual value, and salvage value. Results show that the disassembly and dismantling of an aircraft engine possesses relatively more economic gains than that for the aircraft. The main factors influencing the proposed D&R economic indicator are the salvage value and D&R cost for economically efficient D&R cases. In addition, delaying the disposal and recycle process for EoL aircraft can lead to economically unfavorable solutions. The economic indicator combined with the evaluation methods is widely applicable for evaluations of engineering products EoL solutions, and implies a significant contribution of this research to decision making for such complex systems in terms sustainable policy. ... Read more

The present study develops a method for the sake of evaluating Disposal and Recycle (D&R) cost in view of the increasing demand in aircraft retirement. Firstly, a process model is extracted. The subordinated cost elements are also identified. Next, the cost aggregations based on the D&R process steps are discussed. Moreover, it proposes an economic indicator to support the determination of the aircraft D&R strategies. The indicator is used to evaluate the economic performance and to facilitate the trade-off studies among different D&R scenarios. This analysis is demonstrated on two aircraft types with two scenarios. In addition, sensitivity analysis evaluating the impact of the salvage value, residual value, D&R cost, and the learning factor is performed. It is found that the engine D&R possesses more economic gains than that of the aircraft. The salvage value and residual value are the main factors which influence the D&R economic performance. ... Read more