STUDY ON THE LIFE CYCLE ASSESMENT APPLICATION TO MOTORCYCLES 2001-01-1887

Studies have been made of the standardization of implementation procedures of the life cycle assessment (LCA), standardized as ISO14040 series, under the joint collaboration of industries, government agencies and universities.

A life cycle inventory (LCI) of motorcycles, cases of research of whose LCA are scarce, has been attempted by taking infrastructures of Japan into consideration.

Energy saving property “as mobility of motorcycles” was verified by building up a practical macro LCI method covering the stages of the life cycle of motorcycles.

Furthermore, in the development of aluminum die-cast frames for scooters, micro LCI was performed for manufacturing stages to quantify the environmental advantage of fully utilizing recycled materials and clarify problematical points in the design of new materials. This proved that LCA method is effective for the selection of optimum materials and optimum manufacturing plans.