A short survey of sustainable material extrusion additive manufacturing

ABSTRACT

Additive manufacturing (AM) technology has been developed for more than thirty years and has become a mainstream manufacturing process. Sustainability is becoming increasingly significant for human’s health. In recent years, studies have been carried out to make AM a sustainable manufacturing technique. In this paper, research in improving manufacturing sustainability of material extrusion AM is reviewed. Studies with the aim of saving material, production time and energy in material extrusion AM processes are discussed. Future potential research directions are also identified for making AM more sustainable in the future.

KEYWORDS:

• Additive manufacturing
• environment
• cost
• energy
• clean
• manufacturing sustainability

Disclosure statement

No conflict of interest.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jingchao Jiang

Jingchao Jiang obtained his PhD from University of Auckland, New Zealand. His research mainly focuses on Additive Manufacturing/3D printing.

Yun-Fei Fu

Yun-Fei Fu is currently a Ph.D. student at Deakin University, Australia. His main area of research is design for additive manufacturing. He obtained his B.S. and M.S. in mechanical engineering from Liaoning Technical University, China. He worked as a mechanical engineering designer in Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences (CATAS) for three years.