Energy and emissions saving potential of additive manufacturing: the case of lightweight aircraft components

Runze Huang; Matthew Riddle; Diane Graziano; Joshua Warren; Sujit Das; Sachin Nimbalkar; Joe Cresko; Eric Masanet

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.04.109

Energy and emissions saving potential of additive manufacturing: the case of lightweight aircraft components

Runze Huang, Matthew Riddle, Diane Graziano, Joshua Warren, Sujit Das, Sachin Nimbalkar, Joe Cresko, Eric Masanet

Manufacturing Energy Efficiency Research

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

608 Scopus citations

Abstract

Additive manufacturing (AM) holds great potential for improving materials efficiency, reducing life-cycle impacts, and enabling greater engineering functionality compared to conventional manufacturing (CM), and AM has been increasingly adopted by aircraft component manufacturers for lightweight, cost-effective designs. This study estimates the net changes in life-cycle primary energy and greenhouse gas emissions associated with AM technologies for lightweight metallic aircraft components through the year 2050, to shed light on the environmental benefits of a shift from CM to AM processes in the U.S. aircraft industry. A systems modeling framework is presented, with integrates engineering criteria, life-cycle environmental data, aircraft fleet stock and fuel use models under different AM adoption scenarios. Estimated fleet-wide life-cycle primary energy savings at most reach 70-173 million GJ/year in 2050, with cumulative savings of 1.2–2.8 billion GJ. Associated cumulative GHG emission reductions were estimated at 92.1–215.0 million metric tons. In addition, thousands of tons of aluminum, titanium and nickel alloys could be potentially saved per year in 2050. The results indicate a significant role of AM technologies in helping society meet its long-term energy use and GHG emissions reduction goals, and highlight barriers and opportunities for AM adoption for the aircraft industry.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1559-1570
Number of pages	12
Journal	Journal of Cleaner Production
Volume	135
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.04.109
State	Published - Nov 1 2016

Funding

The work was supported by the DOE Advanced Manufacturing Office. This document has been created by UChicago Argonne, LLC, Operator of Argonne National Laboratory (“Argonne”). Argonne, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, is operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357 . The U.S. Government retains for itself, and others acting on its behalf, a paid-up, nonexclusive, irrevocable worldwide license in said article to reproduce, prepare derivative works, distribute copies to the public, and perform publicly and display publicly, by or on behalf of the Government.

Funders	Funder number
U.S. Department of Energy	DE-AC02-06CH11357
Advanced Manufacturing Office

Keywords

Additive manufacturing
Energy saving
Greenhouse gas emissions
Life cycle assessment
Lightweight aircraft

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.04.109

Cite this

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title = "Energy and emissions saving potential of additive manufacturing: the case of lightweight aircraft components",

abstract = "Additive manufacturing (AM) holds great potential for improving materials efficiency, reducing life-cycle impacts, and enabling greater engineering functionality compared to conventional manufacturing (CM), and AM has been increasingly adopted by aircraft component manufacturers for lightweight, cost-effective designs. This study estimates the net changes in life-cycle primary energy and greenhouse gas emissions associated with AM technologies for lightweight metallic aircraft components through the year 2050, to shed light on the environmental benefits of a shift from CM to AM processes in the U.S. aircraft industry. A systems modeling framework is presented, with integrates engineering criteria, life-cycle environmental data, aircraft fleet stock and fuel use models under different AM adoption scenarios. Estimated fleet-wide life-cycle primary energy savings at most reach 70-173 million GJ/year in 2050, with cumulative savings of 1.2–2.8 billion GJ. Associated cumulative GHG emission reductions were estimated at 92.1–215.0 million metric tons. In addition, thousands of tons of aluminum, titanium and nickel alloys could be potentially saved per year in 2050. The results indicate a significant role of AM technologies in helping society meet its long-term energy use and GHG emissions reduction goals, and highlight barriers and opportunities for AM adoption for the aircraft industry.",

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