Metals production, from mining ore through manufacturing parts, accounts for 7% of global energy use. While metal additive manufacturing (AM) has been promoted as a way to help us reduce our carbon footprint, this has not been well demonstrated with clear and complete information. Furthermore, there lacks a comprehensive comparison of energy consumption by the different AM processes. To optimize when, where, which, and how to implement AM, we must be able to assess its environmental impact and compare this to conventional manufacturing processes like CNC Machining.

For effective analysis, we must consider the whole manufacturing lifecycle. This includes all the steps from feedstock manufacturing, printing, post-processing, and any material reuse along the way. Continuing studies and analysis will only achieve so much, the need to implement digital tools that can monitor, analyse, predict and alert a range of impact and deviations in standard operating procedures is fundamental to continue the maturing of a manufacturing process which has already had an impact on material efficiency. The process of AM is sensitive to many factors, and while AM opens many design efficiencies, such as part consolidation, the energy impact from materials requiring conditioning, not meeting required standards and the time taken to develop build parameters to ensure build by build stability is key to reducing energy use. A print failure has tremendous energy impact. A CNC machine will use 23 KWh per Kg of material removed, with a high rate of success in part quality. Compared to AM and L-PBF which uses on average 80.5 KWh per Kg of material added. Part acceptance rates for L-PBF are lower than a CNC Machine. For every 100kg of material processed, assuming an equal 10% part-failure rate, 805 KWh of energy would be wasted versus the 230KWh for CNC.

The development of the tools proposed within the SAMCRD project would make a profound impact in energy reduction and accelerate additive manufacturing as a viable sustainable production process as part of the UK's manufacturing capabilities.