Energy and Material Flow Analysis of Binder-jetting Additive Manufacturing Processes

Manufacturing, where great amount of energy and materials are being consumed, should take response to have cleaner production and to improve its sustainability. Additive manufacturing (AM) technology shows potential to reduce environment impact as a more sustainable manufacturing method; however, the lack of well documented energy consumption and material flow data limits the development of Life-Cycle Inventory (LCI) analysis of AM technology. This paper presents an energy and material consumption model of Binder-Jetting (BJ) process. A Unit-Process (UP) level model is created and validated by experimental data to provide LCI data for further Life-Cycle Analysis (LCA) of BJ additive manufacturing processes. The accurate process model provides a tool to industry to understand the energy consumption and material efficiency aspect of the binder-jetting process and to allow comparisons with traditional processes.