Environmental Dimensions of Additive Manufacturing: Mapping Application Domains and Their Environmental Implications
Name
Kellens_et_al-2017-Journal_of_Industrial_Ecology.pdf
Size
1.5 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
b150f73575ed6dc9d070a4a9ebc275c7
Author(s)
Kellens, Karel
Baumers, Martin
Flanagan, William
Lifset, Reid
Duflou, Joost R.
Gutowski, Timothy G
Date Issued
August 2017
Journal
Journal of Industrial Ecology
Publisher
Wiley Blackwell
Citation
Kellens, Karel et al. “Environmental Dimensions of Additive Manufacturing: Mapping Application Domains and Their Environmental Implications.” Journal of Industrial Ecology 21, S1 (August 2017): S49–S68 © 2017 The Authors
Version
Final published version
Abstract
© 2017 The Authors. Journal of Industrial Ecology, published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., on behalf of Yale University. Additive manufacturing (AM) proposes a novel paradigm for engineering design and manufacturing, which has profound economic, environmental, and security implications. The design freedom offered by this category of manufacturing processes and its ability to locally print almost each designable object will have important repercussions across society. While AM applications are progressing from rapid prototyping to the production of end-use products, the environmental dimensions and related impacts of these evolving manufacturing processes have yet to be extensively examined. Only limited quantitative data are available on how AM manufactured products compare to conventionally manufactured ones in terms of energy and material consumption, transportation costs, pollution and waste, health and safety issues, as well as other environmental impacts over their full lifetime. Reported research indicates that the specific energy of current AM systems is 1 to 2 orders of magnitude higher compared to that of conventional manufacturing processes. However, only part of the AM process taxonomy is yet documented in terms of its environmental performance, and most life cycle inventory (LCI) efforts mainly focus on energy consumption. From an environmental perspective, AM manufactured parts can be beneficial for very small batches, or in cases where AM-based redesigns offer substantial functional advantages during the product use phase (e.g., lightweight part designs and part remanufacturing). Important pending research questions include the LCI of AM feedstock production, supply-chain consequences, and health and safety issues relating to AM. Keywords: additive manufacturing; energy efficiency; industrial ecology; resource efficiency; sustainability; 3D printing
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1111/JIEC.12629
