Assessing the Environmental and Economic Impact of Wire-Arc Additive Manufacturing

Additive Manufacturing (AM) has continuously been integrated in the modern production landscape and complements traditional manufacturing processes by allowing the creation of complex three-dimensional objects through layer-by-layer material deposition. Especially with new design opportunities and short lead times it has significant impact on different industrial sectors such as healthcare, automotive and aerospace. Compared to other AM technologies, Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) has a particularly high material deposition rate and a high degree of flexibility when building large components. Therefore, WAAM has great potential for efficient and resilient production. To quantify this potential the environmental and economic impact must be assessed. The presented study focuses Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and presents a general methodology for impact analysis as well as a transfer to WAAM. The methodology consists of four steps in accordance with ISO 14044:2006: goal and scope definition, inventory analysis (environmental/economic), environmental impact assessment/cost aggregation, interpretation. For the transfer to WAAM a cradle-to-gate analysis is conducted. The relevant process chain leads from alloy production to the WAAM product manufacturing. The methodology generates relative data, so the final assessment of WAAM must be set into context with alternative processes.