Overview

Develop an understanding of life cycle engineering and focuses on recycling of engineering materials and products at their end of life.

Requisites

Prerequisites

Undergraduate students must have completed 150 credit points

Teaching periods
Location
Start and end dates
Last self-enrolment date
Census date
Last withdraw without fail date
Results released date
Semester 2
Location
Hawthorn
Start and end dates
04-August-2025
02-November-2025
Last self-enrolment date
17-August-2025
Census date
31-August-2025
Last withdraw without fail date
19-September-2025
Results released date
09-December-2025

Learning outcomes

Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:

  • Assess the environmental impacts in conjunction with economic impacts of particular engineering approaches/applications
  • Apply the relevant processing techniques, e.g. sorting, physical separation, and decontamination of products and their components
  • Apply the relevant recycling techniques for metals, plastics and ceramics components
  • Decide the choice of engineering materials for particular products to minimise the environmental impact
  • Analyse the engineering performance of recycled materials
  • Apply sustainability software to carry out life cycle assessment of products and communicate results in oral presentation and project report

Teaching methods

Hawthorn

Type Hours per week Number of weeks Total (number of hours)
On-campus
Lecture		0.83 12 weeks 10
On-campus
Class		2.00 12 weeks 24
Online
Directed Online Learning and Independent Learning		1.17 12 weeks 14
Unspecified Activities
Independent Learning		8.50 12 weeks 102
TOTAL150

Assessment

Type Task Weighting ULO's
AssignmentIndividual 30 - 50% 1,2,3,4,5,6 
ExaminationIndividual 30 - 50% 1,2,3,4,5 
PresentationGroup 10 - 20% 1,6 
Project ReportGroup 10 - 20% 1,6 

Hurdle

As the minimum requirements of assessment to pass a unit and meet all ULOs to a minimum standard, an undergraduate student must have achieved:

(i) an aggregate mark of 50% or more, and(ii) at least 40% in the final exam.Students who do not successfully achieve hurdle requirement (ii) will receive a maximum of 45% as the total mark for the unit.

Content

  • The importance of the human impact to the environment and long term economic welfare
  • Life cycle analysis and life cycle engineering
  • Waste management
  • Design for resource efficiency
  • Reuse and recycling of materials and products
  • Environmental management systems
  • Decarbonisation and hydrogen economy

Study resources

Reading materials

A list of reading materials and/or required textbooks will be available in the Unit Outline on Canvas.