Interlinking Processess

[bscandanavia]

Hello,

I am new to OpenLCA and just starting to get an understanding of its structure. One thing that I am having difficulty with is how to link processes. For instance I am making an aluminum product that I would like to be able to trace back to its resource depletion as the Bauxite mining ore and the various fuels, transports, etc required to do so. In the aluminum can tutorial it is recommended that the elementary product flow called "Aluminium, 24% in bauxite, 11% in crude ore, in ground" be used however this does not seem to allow me to trace back to the various other flows required in the extraction and refinement process.

In the USLCI database there is also a Process called "Aluminum, primary, ingot, at plant" witch contains a number of input flows that serve as outputs to previous steps in the AL refinement process and seems to lead back to the ore extraction as follows:

Process: Aluminum, primary, ingot, at plant
- using the input Flow: Aluminum, primary, smelt, at plant
-- which is the output of the Process: Aluminum, primary, smelt, at plant
--- which takes as it's input the Flow: Alumina, at plant
---- which is the output of the Process: Alumina, at plant
----- taking as its input the flow: Bauxite at Mine
------- which is the output of the Process: Bauxite, at mine

so it seems that all the necessary information is there to perform a full supply chain analysis but I do not understand how I can connect this information to my product system.

Am I missing some fundamental understanding of the OpenLCA structure?

Thanks for any help!

Bjorn.

[aciroth]

Hi Bjorn,
one requirement for establishing a link is that the location is identical (so that you cannot link electricity production in China with electricity consumption in Germany directly). The location needs to be exactly the same in the published openLCA version. in the NREL database, however, these locations are not used fully consistently, e.g. a process may have diesel input from "RNA" (North America region) and will be located in "US". This is not really incorrect, but openLCA checks the locations too strictly. Solution for the moment is to change the locations in the respective flows and processes so that they are identical.
Best wishes,
Andreas

[bscandanavia]

Hi Andreas,
Thank you for the helpful information. I've tried changing all of the flows and processes to "global" without much luck. When I calculate an analysis there does not seem to be any information past the first stage of input flows. The "Aluminum, primary, ingot, at plant" stops with the flow "Aluminum, primary, smelt, at plant" which, of course, the former used as an input.

Is there some explanation I could read that would help me to understand the relationship of flows to processes? How does OpenLCA link a flow to an up-stream process?

That is, since a product flow could potentially be the result of a number of different processes, it doesn't seem obvious that OpenLCA would even be able to know how to back-link a complex supply chain. Is that a correct understanding? If so, is there some way to manually link a series of processes and flows?

In other words, if I want to model all of the processes necessary to produce a cast piece of aluminum that starts with the mining of the ore, includes all the incremental refinery steps of producing an AL alloy and ends with a finished object, how would one go about doing this?

thank again for any further help.

All best,
Bjorn

[aciroth]

Hi Bjorn,
you can link processes manually in the model graph editor; you can also make a link fully specific by entering the default provider process in the process input/output sheet.
Best wishes,
Andreas

2014-04-22 13_53_24-openLCA 1.4 (beta 4).png (17.74 KiB) Viewed 6638 times

[hasseb432]

Good day,
Is it possible to build your own database, and process charts on OPENLCA 1.3.4? can I add my own inputs and outputs? If so could you kindly guide me

Thanks

[aciroth]

Hi, yes that is possible, you can e.g. follow our first steps document which explains how to create processes and build product systems, and thereby in the end build a database, available on the openLCA manual site (http://www.openlca.org/manuals). Or you can attend a training to get more insights. Of course for a full comprehensive life cycle more might be useful but this could a first start.
Best wishes,
Andreas