The Role of re-design for Additive Manufacturing on the Process Environmental Performance

At present, economic and technological design criteria for products and processes should be matched with the minimization of environmental impact objectives. Manufacturing, material production, and product design are strictly connected stages. The choice of a production system over another could result in significant material and energy/resource savings, particularly if the component has been properly designed for manufacturing. In this scenario, Additive Manufacturing, which has been identified as a potential disruptive technology, gained an increasing interest for the creation of complex metal parts. The paper focuses on the tools, based on the holistic modelling of additive and subtractive approaches, which could be used to identify the production route allowing the lowest energy demand or CO2 emissions. The models account for the main process variables as well as the impacts due to the re-design for AM for the creation of components made of Ti-6Al-4V.