# Disposal and Recycle Economic Assessment for Aircraft and Engine End of Life Solution Evaluation
## 1 Introduction  
Within the current commercial aviation industry, more than 8500 aircraft have been retired, and it is expected that around 6600 aircraft will reach their End of Life (EoL) in the next decade [1; 2]. This has led to the required development of economic efficient aircraft Disposal and Recycle (D&R) strategies. Figure 1 illustrates a disposal and recycle sites for EoL aircraft (a) disassembly and (b) dismantling operations. Significant savings can be identified by comparing the labor, material, and energy consumption generated from the D&R processes and that for new productions, i.e., where the D&R processes recycle old components and offer recovered materials, while manufacturing processes produce new components and is concerned with virgin materials. It is found that the cost of manufacturing virgin carbon fiber is around 15-30 USD per pound in 2011, while only 8-12 USD per pound is needed via recycling [3]. Recycling aluminum material from scrap can save up to 95% energy, and the D&R process of producing recovered aluminum metal can reduce 39% energy consumption [4]. Airbus' PAMELA (Process for Advanced Management of End of Life Aircraft) project, in 2005, has demonstrated that around 85% weight recovery can be achieved by recycling an A300 aircraft. Rolls-Royce can recycle as much as 75% aero engine metal by aerospace smelters [5; 6]. This is the main reason for the D&R process to remain competitive in the aviation market, and the D&R process is also related to the original design via the material choice and component recyclability and recoverability [7]. The aircraft EoL solution is associated with the aircraft status based on its operating and maintenance condition before parking and storing. The D&R process also involves engineering processes, such as dismantling, sorting, and component management. Based on the aforementioned properties, it clearly indicates a transdisciplinary character [8]. A deep understanding of the aircraft D&R process could improve the product EoL solutions, and at the same time will, in practice, strengthen its life cycle performance. Studies associated with the disassembly sequence and its efficiency have proven to support the product development process [9; 10]. However, aircraft economics, company economics, and global economics all often restrict the aircraft EoL solution [7]. Due to the small industry size for the aircraft dismantling and recycling, comparatively little study has been carried out to analyze the D&R process and its economic performance. Along with the growth of the industry, it becomes necessary to perform those analyses quantitatively. Literature shows that aircraft disposal cost is around 10% of the purchase price or 1% of the total Life Cycle Cost (LCC) [11; 12], although those rough estimates could not provide a guideline on determining whether a D&R strategy is economic and efficient. The D&R cost and value analysis for commercial aircraft are potentially an effective means for evaluating this process related fundamentally to sustainability. It is very necessary to provide a standard in order to evaluate the economic performance of an EoL solution; therefore, there is a need for an economic indicator for this purpose. Combining the economic indicator with the environmental and societal measures of the aircraft D&R process would strengthen the process of aircraft sustainability evaluation and improve the aircraft life cycle performance. This paper is constructed as follows: First, literature is reviewed thoroughly for both macro and micro levels of aircraft disposal and recycle analysis. Based on historical aircraft EoL projects, the D&R scenarios and its process model are constructed. Detailed methodology for cost and value evaluations is developed, followed by the D&R economic indicator, which is the first time a proposal for a standard for economic evaluation of an aircraft EoL solution is addressed.