Life Cycle Assessment of Metal Products Produced by Additive Manufacturing: A Metal Mold Case Study

Additive manufacturing represents a promising technology with strong potential for future applications, which is ever widening due to the progressive removal of technological and economic barriers. This study is directed at quantifying the environmental and economic benefits, across the entire life cycle, of the application of additive technology direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) in the production of metal molds in comparison with their conventional production. The molds produced by the technologies under comparison are designed for die casting of zinc parts for the automotive industry. An important part of this article is an overview and comparison of available life cycle analysis studies focused on the additive manufacturing of metals. The results of this study demonstrate that although the material used in 3D printing brings higher environmental impacts and is significantly more expensive, even in the production phase additive technology is associated with lower impacts in most categories evaluated by the chosen method of IMPACT 2002+. Even greater benefits are associated with the use phase. Similar results are achieved in the evaluation of levels of cumulative energy demand, greenhouse emissions, and life cycle costs.