Life cycle assessment and cost analysis of hybrid fiber-reinforced engine beauty cover in comparison with glass fiber-reinforced counterpart

Life cycle assessment is a useful tool that helps to quantify the ecological impact of a product. It also enables us to compare two products. Regardless of its weaknesses, this tool is by far one of the best methods introduced and is one of the most complicated techniques available for environmental assessment. While the benefit of using bio-based materials instead of synthetic materials is well known, to date very few studies are available comparing the two products. The aim of this paper is to compare a currently available car engine beauty cover with a hybrid bio-based cover. This study's results show that the new hybrid materials not only perform better in terms of emissions during car operation (because of the fuel savings resulting from lightweighting), but that their production and end of life is also environmentally benign. A cost analysis of the two types of engine covers shows that the new hybrid materials are a good substitute for current materials because their manufacture costs half that of current materials. - Highlights: •Hybrid composite surpasses glass fiber composite although it has 10% carbon fiber. •The cost of producing the part out of hybrid material is lower than glass fiber. •The natural fibers contained composite had a better performance on eutrophication. •Hybrid composite outperforms in all the impact categories but the water and wood.