Engineering Science and Materials Commons^™

Environmental Impacts Of Selective Laser Melting: Do Printer, Powder, Or Power Dominate?, Jeremy Faludi, Martin Baumers, Ian Maskery, Richard Hague

Dartmouth Scholarship

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 …