Comparing the Sustainability Performance of Metal-Based Additive Manufacturing Processes

Abstract

While there have been many advancements in additive manufacturing (AM) technologies for metal products, there has not been a great deal of attention paid toward developing an understanding of the relative sustainability performance of various AM processes for production of aerospace components, such as wire feed and powder bed fusion processes. This research presents a method to calculate and compare quantitative metrics for evaluating metal AM process on a basis of sustainability performance. The process-level evaluation method encompasses a triple bottom line analysis for low volume part production. A representative aerospace titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) component is considered for the study and the production of the part is modeled using direct energy deposition (DED) as the representative wire feed AM process and selective laser melting (SLM) as the representative powder bed AM process. The results indicate that DED has a superior sustainability performance to SLM, mainly due to the relatively slower deposition rate and higher cost of material for SLM than DED. This research provides decision makers an approach method and a demonstrated case study in comparing DED and SLM AM processes. This understanding reveals advantages between the two options and offers avenues of future investigation for these technologies for further development and larger scale use.