CAD based material selection for sustainable design

Researchers describe sustainable development as having three dimensions: an economic, a social and an environmental. In the business community, this has been well known as "the triple bottom line" or as "people, profit and planet", pointing out that sustainable development for business, involves the simultaneous pursuit of economic prosperity, environmental quality and social equity. From the design of product point of view, this approach can be achieved mainly by the Design for Sustainability. Industrial designers should better understand the negative environmental and social impacts of the products they create. They can easily promote a new, more environmental friendly product design, accompanied by culture and lifestyle. In addition, they should understand how to make the required changes, in order to develop products with more sustainable values. However, many of these values are influenced by a range of other factors, such as ergonomics and styling. The present paper considers that sustainability is mainly a direction rather than a destination that will be actually reached. According to this direction, different product designs have been developed using advanced CAD systems. The target is the economic product development, which can be reached by environmental friendly ways, while at the same time they can be socially acceptable. Keywords—CAD, material selection, industrial design