Doing More, With Less: How Simulation Drives Sustainability
Sustainability is woven into everything we do at Schréder. Long before it became a buzzword, we were building durable products while being mindful of resources: good public lighting design has never been wasteful. In our design process, we think about every stage of the circular economy, which in turn helps our customers meet their environmental targets. Read more about our ESG strategy here. And to learn more about the raw materials we use to manufacture our luminaires, read my colleague Marie-Laure Piedboeuf’s blog.
I’m going to explain how sustainability is built into our design and testing process. Before becoming a Mechanical Architect Engineer at Schréder, I worked in the aerospace industry. We used digital twins - an AI-adjacent technology that develops a virtual model of the product - to run simulations of how new designs withstand heat, mechanical and environmental stress. These simulations are also really useful in the lighting industry, and can help with both sustainability and durability.
Virtual Models, Real Benefits
When we are developing a new luminaire for any kind of outdoor lighting - road, urban, sports, tunnels - we create a digital replica of both the luminaire and the environment it will be deployed in. The idea behind simulation is that you have a digital version of the physical testing process. Instead of making a prototype and exposing it to physical testing in a controlled environment, we make 3D drawings that accurately simulate its behaviour, allowing us to analyse it and optimise the design.
The most important thing is to make sure the luminaire will perform safely. Will it pass the mechanical and thermal tests? But at the same time, it brings multiple sustainability benefits. Firstly, we use fewer resources in the development stage. Producing multiple physical models takes time, money and a lot of materials. A digital twin saves on all these factors.
Next, once we’ve established that the luminaire meets safety and efficiency targets, we can optimise for sustainability. The less plastic and metal we use, the lower the environmental impact at every stage from extracting raw materials from the earth, to reuse or recycling. Luminaires are made at scale, so every gram counts. Saving a few grams of material at the design leads to huge cost and sustainability benefits in the manufacturing process.
My team and I receive the plans for the components which are based on rules of thumb. From these, we can run the tests again and again adjusting the thickness of components, trying different materials, and seeing which is the best choice from a sustainability standpoint. This will go through about ten iterations, and it’s a collaborative process: we make comments, send the component back to the designer, they adapt it, we test it again. After a month, the design is ready to be manufactured. The first physical samples are tested as soon as they are available.
Classic Products, New Efficiencies
We’ve been using digital twins for about four years now; the technology has been around for a bit longer than that, but that was the point where it became available to us. Previously, the thickness and dimensions were based on engineers’ hunches, so things tended to be a bit over-engineered. As well as designing new products, we review and update existing ones: in some cases, the gains are kind of easy because you are starting from something that was really too thick.
The most striking example of this is the AXIA 3 EVO, where we have managed to reduce the weight by half. That’s a huge saving in terms of material used, in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and also represents a cost saving that we can pass on to the customer – on top of the energy and cost savings they will achieve by upgrading their lighting.
There are also less spectacular, but no less important savings across our whole range. We look at components, not just whole luminaires, and improve the sustainability of designs there, too. Customers are increasingly choosing retrofit solutions, where they keep their existing luminaires but upgrade the LED optical unit to be more sustainable. We’ve made it so that these units use fewer materials that weigh less, which in turn makes them more sustainable.
Saving Carbon Before Compliance
We need to comply with many regulations, on everything from photometry to temperature rating. The new EU regulation on design, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) will rightly apply to manufacturers selling products in Europe. Regulators will often check the physical model we have made for testing. But you want to get it right the first time – compliance procedures are often costly and time-consuming. So ironing out any issues with the virtual, rather than the physical prototype saves time and money.
Street lighting may not be quite as cool as aeronautics, but every manufacturer needs to work on sustainability. The virtual modelling techniques we’ve developed have led to a significant reduction in the materials used throughout the Schréder range. That means that as well as bright luminaires, we’re helping create a brighter future for the whole planet.
About the writer
Driven by a deep curiosity for how things work, Morgan pursued studies in Automobile Technology, Industrial Science, and Mechanical Engineering before starting his career in the aeronautical industry, where he spent seven years specialising in structural analysis, and mechanical design.
In 2019, he joined Schréder as a Mechanical Architect Engineer, leveraging his expertise in simulation, and design optimisation to improve efficiency and cost-effectiveness. He leads a team of experts that provides mechanical and thermal simulation support to product development teams, ensuring Schréder’s luminaires meet performance, durability, and sustainability requirements, including a 4-star rating for the Circle Light Label.
Connect with Morgan on LinkedIn.