Abstract:

Aiming at calculating the carbon emissions in fused deposition manufacturing (FDM), the carbon emissions are divided into the materials consumption carbon emission, the power consumption carbon emission and the waste recycling carbon emission according to the causes of the emissions. The carbon emission boundary of FDM and the quantitative model are proposed by analyzing its energy consumption and the features of five processes: the raw material preparation process, the FDM process, the support material removing process, the machining process and the waste recycling process. A quantitative method of the carbon emissions in the FDM process is proposed according to its characteristic and the electric power consumption. An experiment of the FDM carbon emissions calculation case is performed to validate the feasibility of the proposed method. The results show that the main source of carbon emissions in the FDM process are caused by power consumption, carbon emissions caused by materials consumption and waste recycling are mainly influenced by the raw materials for 3D printing, and the extra filling rate causes the extra materials consumption carbon emission and the power consumption carbon emission.

Key words: 3D printing, carbon emission, power consumption, fused deposition manufacturing