Abstract
Abstract Selective laser melting (SLM) is known to be potentially sustainable, enabled manufacturing with complex parts with high flexible design. Existing studies have explored the environmental sustainability of SLMed parts, but there is not yet a consolidated conclusion. In this paper, industrial hydraulic valve body was taken as an example. Its part design, material preparation, and part manufacturing were included in the comparative analysis for SLM and conventional manufacturing (CM). A redesigned part using Design for Property (DfP) method was fabricated using SLM. Then, a cradle-to-gate comparative LCA study of these SLMed and CMed parts was performed, with the data from our experiments, enterprise, literature, and databases. The environmental impact of the SLMed hydraulic valve body was found to be 37.42% lower, and the SLMed optimal design can further reduce the environmental impacts 16.84%. Powder preparation is the highest stage of unit impact. For heavier valve body, with the increase of the potentials of lightweight, the environmental impacts of SLM process will become the main phrase during life cycle. Electricity is the main reason of SLM environmental impact. Therefore, to improve environmental performance, collective efforts from both designer and manufacturer are important.
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