A modelling framework for comparing the environmental and economic performance of WAAM-based integrated manufacturing and machining

Additive Manufacturing has proved to be suitable for supporting or even replacing traditional manufacturing approaches in some industrial contexts. Among the various processes that can be used to produce metal parts, Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) is known to be an economically convenient, welding-based direct energy deposition technique for large parts with reduced complexity. The present paper proposes a structured modelling framework to assess whether WAAM could successfully substitute machining processes. The costs, manufacturing times, energy demand and carbon footprint are considered. A case study is presented to clarify and demonstrate the applicability of the proposed methodology.