Representation of product and processes for planning disassembly, shredding, and material sorting based on graphs

This paper proposes an information modeling system to represent the process of the disassembly and recycle planning of consumer products. The destructive disassembly, shredding of parts to fragments, and the sorting of materials are considered in the model. Four kinds of graphs that uniformly express the models are: 1) a configuration graph of sub-assemblies or fragments, 2) a connection graph between parts or materials, 3) a process graph of disassembly, shredding, and sorting activities, and 4) a retrieval condition graph. Rules and procedures for transforming the models of these activities are also uniformly formulated by changing the topology and node attributes of the graphs. A software tool for planning all feasible disassembly and recycling processes and a case study using a retired vacuum cleaner are shown