Energy and emissions saving potential of additive manufacturing: the case of lightweight aircraft components
- Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States). McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Energy Systems Division
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Global Security Sciences Division
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Dept. of Energy (DOE), Washington DC (United States). Advanced Manufacturing Office
Additive manufacturing (AM) holds great potential for improving materials efficiency, reducing life-cycle impacts, and enabling greater engineering functionality compared to conventional manufacturing (CM) processes. For these reasons, AM has been adopted by a growing number of aircraft component manufacturers to achieve more 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, and aircraft fleet stock and fuel use models under different AM adoption scenarios. Estimated fleetwide life-cycle primary energy savings in a rapid adoption scenario reach 70-174 million GJ/year in 2050, with cumulative savings of 1.2-2.8 billion GJ. Associated cumulative emission reduction potentials of CO2e were estimated at 92.8-217.4 million metric tons. About 95% of the savings is attributed to airplane fuel consumption reductions due to lightweighting. In addition, about 4050 tons aluminum, 7600 tons titanium and 8100 tons of nickel alloys could be 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.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-00OR22725; AC02-06CH11357
- OSTI ID:
- 1286800
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1298333
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 135; ISSN 0959-6526
- Publisher:
- ElsevierCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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