Session: DFMLC-01-01: Life Cycle, Human Factors, Supply Chain, and Circular Economy

Paper Number: 142824

142824 - Parametric Analysis of Relationships Among Part Geometry, Build Time, and Energy Consumption for Laser Powder Bed Fusion 

Sustainable manufacturing systems must have sufficient throughput to meet demand, be cost-effective, and have an acceptably low environmental impact. For additive manufacturing by laser powder bed fusion (LPBF), part designers and process engineers must understand the underlying scalings among energy utilization, process parameters, and part geometry to attain high-efficiency, low-carbon LPBF production.   

To this end, we present a family of parameterized models that digitally analyze part geometry, estimate laser scan paths, and calculate energy consumption associated with single-geometry LPBF production. Using a custom-built slicer and computational pipeline, geometry-specific build time is numerically calculated. A unit process life cycle inventory (UPLCI) is applied to articulate energy consumption across printer warm up, cool down, idling, and scanning. For parts (n = 15) each with a mass of 100g in AlSi10Mg built on a simulated EOS m290, per-part build time varies from 29.2 to 44.3 minutes, a difference of up to 51.7%. Specific energy consumption varies between 20.3 to 30.5 MJ/kg, a difference of up to 50.3%. Results show that volume fraction trends logarithmically with build time and energy consumption, and that build time and energy consumption are strongly linearly related. 

This work articulates how throughput and energy scale with design decisions including part design and selection, and translate these findings into guidance for manufacturing and design engineers.

Presenting Author: Kaitlyn Gee Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Presenting Author Biography: Kaitlyn Gee is a PhD candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research centers on understanding how the value, cost, and environmental burden of additive manufacturing are coupled through the development of computational models for laser powder bed fusion, and exploring how designers could blend conventional manufacturing knowledge with Native Hawaiian knowledge systems to unlock novel approaches to architect sustainable manufacturing systems. She is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, a Tau Beta Pi Centennial Fellow, and an MIT Presidential Fellow. Her work has been published and presented in the Rapid Prototyping Journal, the International Conference on Simulation for Additive Manufacturing (SIM-AM), and the International Design Engineering Technical Conferences (IDETC).

Authors:

Kaitlyn Gee Massachusetts Institute of Technology
A. John Hart Massachusetts Institute of Technology