Eco-Design for Metal Additive Manufacturing: A Parametric Model for Combining Mass Reduction with Recycled and Reused Powder

Eco-design for metal additive manufacturing (AM) can be pursued in different manners, including lightweight design and the reuse and recycling of powders. However, these options are contradictory due to the decline in characteristics in recycled and reused powders. This study proposes a parametric model of the environmental impact of AM process, including raw material extraction, metallurgical process, scrap recycling, melting, atomization for the production of the powders and printing. The model consists of an objective function that has been derived from the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology applied to the AM process. Each contribution of the function has been parameterized, including decision variables about mass reduction and the percentage of use of recycled and reused powder. The eco-design for AM is pursued through the minimization of the objective function (i.e., the environmental impact of the process) by obtaining the most suitable values of the decision variables. The proposed model has been applied to an illustrative example related to the AM of a component made by Ti6Al4V.