Abstract
Environmental problem is one of important global issues. Transportations are main pollutant emission sources. Although railroad is stilt an environmental-friendly transportation, its environmental impact has been increased continuously. Especially, because a large amount of environmental impact is released from vehicles and facilities, it is necessary to assess and to reduce their environmental impact. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a representative method which can evaluate environment impact through the whole life cycle of a product or a process. In this study, the environmental impact of seat in the electric motor unit (EMU) was analyzed quantitatively with its material using lift cycle assessment (LCA). As a result, the characteristics of environmental impact were investigated differently with the material of seat. Among ten impact categories, the seat with aluminum and FRP showed the highest ozone depletion (OD). On the other hand, in the seat with stainless steel and plastic, fresh water aquatic ecotoxicity (FAET) and marine water aquatic ecotoxicity (MAET) were high relatively. Therefore, the parts of EMU must be selected considering the characteristics of environmental impact in future.
