Department of Mechanical Engineering
2014 Special Seminar
Cassandra Telenko, Ph.D.
Post-Doctoral Associate
Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Probabilistic Graphical Modeling
as a Use Stage Inventory Method
for Environmentally Conscious Design
Feb. 10, 2014 | 10:30 AM | DeWalt Seminar Room, 2164 Martin Hall
abstract:
Environmentally conscious design guidelines provide general actions and rules
of thumb for reducing environmental impacts, such as energy consumption, of products, but
these reductions are conditional and conflicts between guidelines may arise. Such tradeoffs
can be evaluated with standard energy life cycle inventories (LCI) that quantify the energy consumption of each stage in a product’s life cycle, such as material extraction and consumer use.
LCI studies of different usage contexts are of special interest because a majority of energy
consumption can occur during product use. Nevertheless, many energy LCIs assume average
scenarios of how a product may be used and do not consider the variable energy consumption
of different usage contexts and behaviors. In this research, a probabilistic graphical model
(PGM) was combined with an LCI to represent the usage context as a network of factors
characterized by local conditional probability distributions. Using the example of a lightweight
vehicle redesign, a PGM was developed using publicly available data sources to describe usage
context factors such as driver behavior, alternative driving schedules, and residential density.
bio:
Cassandra Telenko is a postdoctoral associate in the MIT-SUTD International Design
Centre with joint appointments at MIT and SUTD. She received a National Science Foundation
Graduate Research Fellowship to fund her graduate work at the University of Texas at Austin
where she completed her MSE (2009) and PhD (2012) in Mechanical Engineering. She received her B.E. (2007) in Mechanical Engineering from the Cooper Union for the Advancement
of Science and Art.
www.enme.umd.edu/seminars
For more information: Kim Frye (kfrye@umd.edu)