Speaker
Description
Metal Additive Manufacturing (AM) is set to revolutionise product design and production, but also maintenance and repair of products in service. AM-enabled lightweighting is predicted to save billions of Euros/Dollars as well as to reduce harmful emissions in the transport sector. Reduced manufacturing waste is another potential cost and sustainability gain. However, most mass-production is very efficient and will not be replaced by 3D-printing. It is therefore interesting to explore at which point AM is economically and environmentally beneficial.
It is well known that superalloys, due to their hardness and mechanical durability at high temperatures, require significant energy in shaping. This includes both machining and near-net-shape forming processes, such as casting and AM. It would thus be useful to know the relative magnitude of the specific energy required for the life-cycle phases of a general AM part. For products in the aerospace and transportation sector potentially benefiting from lightweighting, the use phase is normally the dominant energy component in the life-cycle. However, from the product design and manufacture point of view, this phase is very specific to each application and outside of their control.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the life cycle properties, cradle-to-gate, regarding powder bed AM of superalloy components, in order to facilitate future assessment of its environmental impact. This includes a streamlined but quantitative Life-Cycle Inventory (LCI) of generic AM parts made of superalloy IN718 (including powder production). Results show that Electron Beam Melting (EBM) and Selective Laser Melting (SLM) require significant specific energy in manufacturing, comparable to the embodied energy of the raw material itself. The AM part of the energy use is highly dependent on the geometry of the build. Carbon footprints from each phase are also estimated and discussed.
| Speaker Country | Sweden |
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