Dates
| weekly | Thursday | 10:15 - 11:45 | 12.10.2026 - 29.01.2027 | C 11.307 Seminarraum |
Curriculum context
Paper / Report (50%)
Resit date: No resit date will be offered to this assessment, because it is didactically inseparably connected with one of the associated courses. A resit will only be possible, if the module is available again.
Organizational information
Registration
Die Anmeldung beginnt erst am 02.10.2026 um 08:00 Uhr. Sie endet am 12.10.2026 um 23:59 Uhr
Persons
Content
Life Cycle Assessment serve as frameworks that integrate different modeling approaches (calculation methods). The main challenge of calculation procedures in the field of LCA (and other tools for environmental modeling) is to solve equations numerically, in case of LCA systems of linear algebraic equations (matrix method).
The modeling and simulation approaches comprise two steps or tasks: (1) the specification of a system of equations and (2) the calculation of solutions. Software tools provide support for both tasks. They provide an appropriate user interface (e.g. direct manipulation of objects and properties instead of equations) and a calculation engine (solvers).
Different strategies to specify and to solve equations are required: (1) Systems of linear algebraic equations (efficiency analyses like cost accounting or life cycle assessment), (2) System of non-linear algebraic equations (steady state in material and energy flow systems), (3) Systems of ordinary differential equations (dynamics of stocks).
So, core topics of the seminar are: Application of solution methods for linear equations, approaches to solving sets of nonlinear equations, Material flow accounting (MFA) & LCA as accounting systems for material and energy flows and stock, Assessment of environmental impacts of products, services and decisions.
"A model is an abstraction of reality" (Wainwright, Mulligan 2003). We are interested in future-oriented immaterial formal models (cf. the "need to look into the future" (Wainwright, Mulligan 2003) in sustainability sciences). In these models, observation or data collection must be replaced by specification and calculation. The purpose of the seminar is to introduce the basic ideas behind those approaches.
Life Cycle Assessment can be considered as application domains for different strategies: calculation of carbon footprints, assessment of global environmental impacts of products and services, ...
Evaluation
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