Environmental impacts of selective laser melting: do printer, powder, or power dominate?
This life cycle assessment measured environmental impacts of selective laser melting, to determine where most impacts arise: machine and supporting hardware; aluminum powder material used; or electricity used to print. Machine impacts and aluminum powder impacts were calculated by generating life cy...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Published: |
Wiley
2016
|
| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/40613/ |
| _version_ | 1848796099406462976 |
|---|---|
| author | Faludi, Jeremy Baumers, Martin Maskery, Ian Hague, Richard |
| author_facet | Faludi, Jeremy Baumers, Martin Maskery, Ian Hague, Richard |
| author_sort | Faludi, Jeremy |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | This life cycle assessment measured environmental impacts of selective laser melting, to determine where most impacts arise: machine and supporting hardware; aluminum powder material used; or electricity used to print. Machine impacts and aluminum powder impacts were calculated by generating life cycle inventories of materials and processing; electricity use was measured by in-line power meter; transport and disposal were also assessed. Impacts were calculated as energy use (megajoules; MJ), ReCiPe Europe Midpoint H, and ReCiPe Europe Endpoint H/A. Previous research has shown that the efficiency of additive manufacturing depends on machine operation patterns; thus, scenarios were demarcated through notation listing different configurations of machine utilization, system idling, and postbuild part removal. Results showed that electricity use during printing was the dominant impact per part for nearly all scenarios, both in MJ and ReCiPe Endpoint H/A. However, some low-utilization scenarios caused printer embodied impacts to dominate these metrics, and some ReCiPe Midpoint H categories were always dominated by other sources. For printer operators, results indicate that maximizing capacity utilization can reduce impacts per part by a factor of 14 to 18, whereas avoiding electron discharge machining part removal can reduce impacts per part by 25% to 28%. For system designers, results indicate that reductions in energy consumption, both in the printer and auxiliary equipment, could significantly reduce the environmental burden of the process. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:42:36Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-40613 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:42:36Z |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-406132020-05-04T18:24:21Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/40613/ Environmental impacts of selective laser melting: do printer, powder, or power dominate? Faludi, Jeremy Baumers, Martin Maskery, Ian Hague, Richard This life cycle assessment measured environmental impacts of selective laser melting, to determine where most impacts arise: machine and supporting hardware; aluminum powder material used; or electricity used to print. Machine impacts and aluminum powder impacts were calculated by generating life cycle inventories of materials and processing; electricity use was measured by in-line power meter; transport and disposal were also assessed. Impacts were calculated as energy use (megajoules; MJ), ReCiPe Europe Midpoint H, and ReCiPe Europe Endpoint H/A. Previous research has shown that the efficiency of additive manufacturing depends on machine operation patterns; thus, scenarios were demarcated through notation listing different configurations of machine utilization, system idling, and postbuild part removal. Results showed that electricity use during printing was the dominant impact per part for nearly all scenarios, both in MJ and ReCiPe Endpoint H/A. However, some low-utilization scenarios caused printer embodied impacts to dominate these metrics, and some ReCiPe Midpoint H categories were always dominated by other sources. For printer operators, results indicate that maximizing capacity utilization can reduce impacts per part by a factor of 14 to 18, whereas avoiding electron discharge machining part removal can reduce impacts per part by 25% to 28%. For system designers, results indicate that reductions in energy consumption, both in the printer and auxiliary equipment, could significantly reduce the environmental burden of the process. Wiley 2016-12-27 Article PeerReviewed Faludi, Jeremy, Baumers, Martin, Maskery, Ian and Hague, Richard (2016) Environmental impacts of selective laser melting: do printer, powder, or power dominate? Journal of Industrial Ecology . ISSN 1530-9290 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jiec.12528/abstract;jsessionid=A343962FE23BF486E8189B495780EFF4.f03t01 doi:10.1111/jiec.12528 doi:10.1111/jiec.12528 |
| spellingShingle | Faludi, Jeremy Baumers, Martin Maskery, Ian Hague, Richard Environmental impacts of selective laser melting: do printer, powder, or power dominate? |
| title | Environmental impacts of selective laser melting: do printer, powder, or power dominate? |
| title_full | Environmental impacts of selective laser melting: do printer, powder, or power dominate? |
| title_fullStr | Environmental impacts of selective laser melting: do printer, powder, or power dominate? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Environmental impacts of selective laser melting: do printer, powder, or power dominate? |
| title_short | Environmental impacts of selective laser melting: do printer, powder, or power dominate? |
| title_sort | environmental impacts of selective laser melting: do printer, powder, or power dominate? |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/40613/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/40613/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/40613/ |