The Potential of Additive Manufacturing Technology for Realizing a Sustainable Society
Today, additive manufacturing (AM), which refers to a process by which digital design data is used to build up artifacts by decomposing material, is gaining growing interest from industry. The AM’s capability for producing complex structure in extremely s
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Abstract Today, additive manufacturing (AM), which refers to a process by which digital design data is used to build up artifacts by decomposing material, is gaining growing interest from industry. The AM’s capability for producing complex structure in extremely small lot size can enable more optimal design for today’s manufacturing products. Through such optimal design of each product, energy and material consumption of society can be significantly reduced. As AM can produce a wide variety of components in one-by-one production, the total number of the products (and components) can be significantly reduced. In addition, the products made by AM can be optimally designed and manufactured for each particular purpose. This implies these products have no unused functions that may consume additional energy and materials. The objective of the paper is to propose the method for evaluating AM’s potential for reducing environmental impact of society considering these factors caused by introducing AM technology into industry. Keywords Additive manufacturing • Environmental load • Life cycle value • Life cycle simulation • Scenario analysis
1 Introduction Today, additive manufacturing (AM), which refers to a process by which digital design data is used to build up artifacts by decomposing material, is gaining growing interest from industry. The AM’s capability for producing complex
S. Kondoh (*) • Y. Kishita • H. Komoto National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Japan e-mail: [email protected] T. Tateno Meiji University, Ikuta, Japan S. Fukushige Osaka University, Osaka, Japan © Springer Japan 2017 M. Matsumoto et al. (eds.), Sustainability Through Innovation in Product Life Cycle Design, EcoProduction, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-0471-1_32
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structure in extremely small lot size can enable more optimal design for today’s manufacturing products. Through such optimal design of each product, energy and material consumption of society can be significantly reduced. As AM can produce a wide variety of components in one-by-one production, the total number of the products (and components) can be significantly reduced. In addition, the products made by AM can be optimally designed and manufactured for each particular purpose. This implies these products have no unused functions that may consume additional energy and materials. Furthermore, AM also enables lightweight (but complex) design of components which may contribute significant reduction in energy consumption of products. Although some researchers evaluated the environmental load of additive manufacturing process itself and compared it with that of conventional manufacturing processes [e.g., 1–4], little research focused on the possibility of environmental load reduction and increased product value through such optimal design of products. The objective of the paper is to propose the method for evaluating AM’s potential for reducing environmental load of society considering these factors caused by introduci
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