Research Papers

• Burd JTJ, Moore EA, Ezzat H, Kirchain R, Roth R. 2020. Improvements in electric vehicle battery technology influence vehicle lightweighting and material substitution decisions. Applied Energy.
• Caldeira C, Swei O, Freire F, Dias L, Olivetti EA, Kirchain R. 2019. Planning Strategies to Address Operational and Price Uncertainty in Biodiesel Production. Applied Energy. 238(15):1573-1581.
• Duan H, Miller TR, Gregory J, Kirchain R. 2014. Quantifying Export Flows of Used Electronics: Advanced Methods to Resolve Used Goods within Trade Data. Environmental Science & Technology.
• Gulsen E, Olivetti E, Freire F, Dias L, Kirchain R. 2014. Impact of Feedstock Diversification on the Cost-Effectiveness of Biodiesel. Applied Energy.
• Gregory J, Montalbo T, Kirchain R. 2013. Analyzing Uncertainty in a Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Hand Drying Systems. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. 18:1605-1617.
• Swei O, Gregory J, Kirchain R. 2013. Probabilistic Characterization of Uncertain Inputs in the Life-Cycle Cost Analysis of Pavements. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board. :71-77.
• Noshadravan A, Wildnauer M, Gregory J, Kirchain R. 2013. Comparative pavement life cycle assessment with parameter uncertainty. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment. 25:131-138.
• Johnson M, Kirchain R. 2013. Quantifying the Effects of Parts Consolidation and Development Costs on Material Selection Decisions: A Process-Based Costing Approach.
• Gaustad G, Kirchain R. 2013. Design for Recycling: Evaluation and Efficient Alloy Modification.
• Yang Y, Roth R, Arinez J, Biller S, Kirchain R. 2013. Mapping Context And Interdependency In Technology Selection: A Process-Based Cost Model For Product Assembly.
• Li P, Li Y, Kirchain R. 2013. Methods And Strategies For Improving Secondary Materials Usage In The Context Of Uncertain Demand.
• Kirchain R.. 2013. The Value of the Scrap Hedge: Characterizing the Incentives for Increased Secondary Materials Usage in the Context of Uncertain Demand.
• Alonso E, Sherman A, Wallington T, Everson M, R Field RF, Kirchain R. 2012. Evaluating Rare Earth Element Availability: A Case with Revolutionary Demand from Clean Technologies. Environmental Science & Technology. 46:3406-3414.
• Alonso E, Field F, Kirchain R.. 2012. Platinum Availability for Future Automotive Technologies. Environmental Science & Technology. 46:12986-12993.
• Miller TR, Gregory J, Duan H, Kirchain R, Linnell J. 2012. Characterizing Transboundary Flows of Used Electronics: Summary Report.
• S Murphy F, Gregory J, Kirchain R. 2012. Evaluating the Performance of Recycling Systems: Examples from North American and European Electronics Recycling Systems. E-Waste Management: From Waste to Resource.
• Fuchs E, Kirchain R. 2012. Changing Paths: The Impact of Manufacturing Offshore on Technology Development Incentives in the Optoelectronics Industry.
• Alonso E, Roth R. 2012. An Assessment of the Rare Earth Element Content of Conventional and Electric Vehicles.
• Johnson M, Kirchain R. 2012. A Process-based Cost Modeling Approach to the Development of Product Families.
• Johnson M, Kirchain R. 2012. A Process-based Cost Modeling Approach to the Development of Product Families.
• Johnson M, Kirchain R. 2012. The Importance of Product Development Cycle Time and Cost in the Development of Product Families.
• Gaustad G, Olivetti E, Kirchain R. 2012. Improving Aluminum Recycling: A Survey of Sorting and Impurity Removal Technologies. Resources, Conservation & Recycling. 58:79-87.
• Alonso E, Lee T, Bjelkengren C, Roth R, Kirchain R. 2012. Evaluating the Potential for Secondary Mass Savings in Vehicle Lightweighting. Environmental Science & Technology Technology. 46:2893-2901.
• Fleming N, Alonso E, Field F, Kirchain R, Roth R. 2011. Recycling and Material Price: An Exploration of the Effects of Secondary Substitutability on Price Stability.
• Gulsen E., Olivetti E., Kirchain R., Freire F.. 2011. Impact of Blending on Estimated Uncertainty of Biodiesel Emissions. ISIE 2011 6th International Conference on Industrial Ecology.
• Johnson M, Kirchain R. 2011. The Importance of Product Development Cycle Time and Cost in the Development of Product Families. Journal of Engineering Design. 22:87-99.
• Gaustad G, Olivetti E, Kirchain R. 2011. Toward Sustainable Material Usage: Evaluating the Importance of Market Motivated Agency in Modeling Material Flows. Environmental Science & Technology. 45:4110-4117.
• Olivetti E, Gaustad G, Field F, Kirchain R. 2011. Increasing Secondary and Renewable Material Use: A Chance Constrained Modeling Approach to Manage Feedstock Quality Variation. Environmental Science & Technology. 45:4118-4126.
• Fuchs E, Field F, Roth R, Kirchain R. 2011. Plastic cars in China? The significance of production location over markets for technology competitiveness in the United States versus the People’s Republic of China International Journal of Production Economics. 132:79-92.
• Nadeau M-C, Kar A, Roth R, Kirchain R. 2011. A Dynamic Process-Based Cost Modeling Approach to Understand Learning Effects in Manufacturing. International Journal of Production Economics.
• Li P, Dahmus J, Guldberg S, Riddervold HO, Kirchain R. 2011. How Much Sorting is Enough: Identifying Economic and Scrap-Reuse Benefits of Sorting Technologies. Journal of Industrial Ecology. 15:743-759.
• Fuchs E, Liu S, Kirchain R. 2011. The Future of Silicon Photonics: Not So Fast? Insights from 100G Ethernet LAN Transceivers Journal of Lightwave Technology. 29:2319-2326.
• Fleming N, Alonso E, Field F, Kirchain R, Roth R. 2011. Recycling and Material Price: An Exploration of the Effects of Secondary Substitutability on Price Stability.
• Zgola ML, Olivetti E, Weber C, Boyd S, Mangold J., Abedrabbo R, Williams E, Gregory J, Kirchain R. 2011. Environmental Assessment of IT Products Using a Triage Approach. ISSST International Symposium on Sustainable Systems and Technology.
• Miller T.R., Gregory J, Kirchain R. 2011. Methods for Estimating End of Life Electronics Exports from North America. ISSST International Symposium on Sustainable Systems and Technology.
• Patanavanich S, Olivetti E, Gregory J, Kirchain R. 2011. Exploring the Viability of Probabilistic Underspecification to Streamlined Life Cycle Assessment. ISSST International Symposium on Sustainable Systems and Technology.
• Kirchain R, Alonso E. 2011. Material Availability And Recycling: Identifying Risks And Evaluating Responses. Materials for Energy and Environmental Sustainability. :549-564.
• Gregory J, Jeong P, Olivetti E, Kirchain R, Blanco E. 2011. Impact of Uncertainty in Activity Data and Emissions Factors on Firm Scope 3 Greenhouse Gas Emissions Estimates. ISSST International Symposium on Sustainable Systems and Technology.
• Fleming N, Alonso E, Field F, Kirchain R, Roth R. 2011. Non‐Price Material Scarcity Metrics: How Well, and Under What Conditions Is the Risk They Indicate Reflected by Material Price? ISIE 2011 6th International Conference on Industrial Ecology.
• Johnson M, Kirchain R. 2010. Developing and Assessing Commonality Metrics for Product Families: A Process-based Cost Modeling Approach. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management. 57:643-648.
• Alonso E, Field F, Roth R, Kirchain R. 2010. Motivating Sustainable Material Use through Industry-Level Simulation Modeling of Platinum Stocks and Flows. TMS Annual Meeting and Exhibition – EPD Congress. :827-834.
• Gaustad G, Olivetti E, Kirchain R. 2010. Design for Recycling: Evaluation and Efficient Alloy Modification. Journal of Industrial Ecology. 14:286–308.
• Fuchs E, Kirchain R. 2010. Design for Location? The Impact of Manufacturing Offshore on Technology Competitiveness in the Optoelectronics Industry Management Science. 56:2323-2349.
• Kirchain R, Field F, Roth R, Alonso E. 2009. Strategies to Address Risks of Platinum Scarcity for Supply Chain Downstream Firms. IEEE International Symposium on Sustainable Systems and Technology.
• Johnson M, Kirchain R. 2009. Quantifying the Effects of Parts Consolidation and Development Costs on Material Selection Decisions: A Process-Based Costing Approach. International Journal of Production Economics. 119:174-186.
• Cheah L, Heywood J, Kirchain R. 2009. Aluminum Stock and Flows in the U.S. Light-Duty Vehicle Fleet and Implications on the Material Cycle Energy Use. Journal of Industrial Ecology. 13:718-734.
• Gregory J, Nadeau M-C, Kirchain R. 2009. Evaluating the Economic Viability of a Material Recovery System: The Case of Cathode Ray Tube Glass. Environmental Science and Technology. 43:9245-9251.
• Johnson M, Kirchain R. 2009. Quantifying the effects of product family decisions on material selection: A process-based costing approach. International Journal of Production Economics. 120:653-668.
• Fuchs E, Field F, Roth R, Kirchain R. 2008. Strategic Materials Selection in the Automotive Body: Economic Opportunities for Polymer Composite Design. Composites Science and Technology. 68:1989-2002.
• Gregory J, Kirchain R. 2008. A Framework for Evaluating the Economic Performance of Recycling Systems: A Case Study of North American Electronics Recycling Systems. Environmental Sciences and Technology. 42:6800-6808.
• Gaustad G, Peterson R, Kirchain R. 2008. Modeling Methods to Guide Recycling Friendly Alloy Design: The Impact of Compositional Data Structure. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of TMS: 9th Global Innovations Symposium – Trends in Integrated Computational Materials Engineering for Materials Processing and Manufacturing. :263-270.
• Montalbo T, Lee T, Roth R, Kirchain R. 2008. Modeling Costs and Fuel Economy Benefits of Lightweighting Vehicle Closure Panels.
• Olivetti E, Gregory J, Kirchain R. 2008. Original Equipment Manufacturer End-of-Life Equipment Collection Metrics. Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Electronics and the Environment.
• Dahmus J, Fredholm S, Olivetti E, Gregory J, Kirchain R. 2008. Modeling the Economic and Environmental Performance of Recycling Systems. Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Electronics and the Environment.
• Fredholm S, Gregory J, Kirchain R. 2008. Characterizing Architectural Options for Electronic Waste Recycling Systems. Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Electronics and the Environment.
• Alonso E, Field F, Kirchain R. 2008. A Case Study of the Availability of Platinum Group Metals for Electronics Manufacturers. Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Electronics and the Environment.
• Gregory J, Alonso E, Field F, Kirchain R. 2007. Characterizing Sustainable Material Recovery Systems: A Case Study of E-Waste Materials.
• Alonso E, Field F, Gregory J, Kirchain R. 2007. Material Availability and the Supply Chain: Risks, Effects, and Responses. Environmental Science and Technology. 41:6649-6656.
• Gaustad G, Das S, Kirchain R. 2007. Identifying Scrap Friendly Alloys Using Chance Constrained Modeling. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of TMS: Light Metals Division. :1153-1160.
• Allen AN, Das S, Field F, Kirchain R. 2007. Robustness of Materials Selection Decisions Using Various Life-Cycle Assessment Methods. Proceedings of the TMS Conference on Materials Science and Technology (MS&T07). :55-66.
• Kirchain R, Cosquer A. 2007. Strategies for Maintaining Light Metal Reuse: Insights from Modeling of Firm-wide Raw Materials Availability and Demand. Resources, Conservation, and Recycling. 51:367-396.
• Gaustad G, Li P, Kirchain R. 2007. Modeling Methods For Managing Raw Material Compositional Uncertainty In Alloy Production. Resources, Conservation, and Recycling. 52:180-207.
• Kirchain R, Kimerling LC. 2007. A roadmap for nanophotonics. Nature Photonics. 1:303-305.
• Field F, Kirchain R, Roth R. 2007. Process Cost Modeling: Strategic Engineering and Economic Evaluation of Materials Technologies. Journal of Metals. 49:1543-1581.
• Gregory J, Alonso E, Cameron D, Connors S, Field F, Kirchain R. 2006. A Survey of Environmental and Social Pressures on Supply Chains and Responses.
• Alonso E, Cameron D, Connors S, Field F, Gregory J, Kirchain R. 2006. Material Availability and the Supply Chain: Risks, Effects, and Responses.
• Fuchs E, Bruce E, Ram R, Kirchain R. 2006. Process-based Cost Modeling of Photonics Manufacture: The Cost Competitiveness of Monolithic Integration of a 1550-nm DFB Laser and an Electroabsorptive Modulator on an InP Platform. Journal of Lightwave Technology. 24:3175-3186.
• Atlee J, Kirchain R. 2006. Operational Sustainability Metrics Assessing Metric Effectiveness in the Context of Electronics-Recycling Systems. Environmental Science and Technology. 40:4506-4513.
• Gregory J, , Kirchain R. 2006. Driving Eco-Efficiency-Informed Decisions: A Process-Based Model of End-of-Life Electronics Recycling. Proceedings of IEEE International Symposium on Electronics and the Environment. :138-143.
• Gregory J, Kirchain R. 2006. Eco-Efficient Recycling Alternatives for End-of-Life Cathode Ray Tubes. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of TMS: Light Metals Division. :909-918.
• Kimerling LC. 2005. Microphotonics: Hardware for the Information Age, MIT Communications Technology Roadmap.
• Li P, Kirchain R. 2005. Modeling Scrap Sourcing Decisions Given Uncertain Demand. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of TMS: Light Metals Division. :849-854.
• Li P, Guldberg S, Riddervold HO, Kirchain R. 2005. Identifying Economic and Scrap Reuse Benefits of Light Metals Sorting Technologies. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of TMS: EPD Congress 2005. :37-51.
• Kirchain R. 2005. Overview of the MIT-CTR: Conclusions and Next Steps. Proceedings of Compounding Semiconductor Week 2005.
• Field F, Kirchain R, Roth R, Clark J. 2004. Projecting automotive materials consumption and its impact on future resource scarcity. Mobility 2030: Meeting the challenges to sustainability World Business Council on Sustainable Development.
• Fuchs E, Kirchain R. 2004. Consolidate? Integrate? Go East? Or Get Out? Taking the Driver’s Seat in Optoelectronics Production Costs
• Fuchs E, Kirchain R. 2003. Understanding the Economics of Integration: Process-based Cost Modeling of Optoelectronics Production.
• Urbance R, Field F, Kirchain R, Roth R, Clark J. 2002. Market Model Simulation: The Impact of Increased Automotive Interest in Magnesium. Journal of Metals. 54:25-33.
• Kirchain R. 2002. The Role of Titanium in the Automobile: Understanding the Economic Implication of Three Emerging Technologies.
• Field F, Kirchain R, Clark J. 2001. Life Cycle Assessment and Temporal Distributions of Emissions: Developing a Fleet-Based Analysis. Journal of Industrial Ecology. 4:71-91.
• Kirchain R, Roth R, Field F, Clark J. 2001. Assessing the Strategic Value of Manufacturing Technology through Process Based Cost Modeling. Global Automotive Manufacturing Technology. :76-83.
• Kirchain R, Field F. 2000. Process Based Cost Modeling: Understanding the Economics of Technical Decisions. Encyclopedia of Materials Science & Engineering. 2:1718-1727.