Abstract
Additive manufacturing (AM) holds great potential for improving materials efficiency,
reducing life-cycle impacts, and enabling greater engineering functionality compared to conventional
manufacturing (CM) processes. For these reasons, AM has been adopted by a growing number of
aircraft component manufacturers to achieve more lightweight, cost-effective designs. This study
estimates the net changes in life-cycle primary energy and greenhouse gas emissions associated with
AM technologies for lightweight metallic aircraft components through the year 2050, to shed light on
the environmental benefits of a shift from CM to AM processes in the U.S. aircraft industry. A systems
modeling framework is presented, with integrates engineering criteria, life-cycle environmental data,
and aircraft fleet stock and fuel use models under different AM adoption scenarios. Estimated fleetwide
life-cycle primary energy savings in a rapid adoption scenario reach 70-174 million GJ/year in
2050, with cumulative savings of 1.2-2.8 billion GJ. Associated cumulative emission reduction
potentials of CO2e were estimated at 92.8-217.4 million metric tons. About 95% of the savings is
attributed to airplane fuel consumption reductions due to lightweighting. In addition, about 4050 tons
aluminum, 7600 tons titanium and 8100 tons of nickel alloys could be saved per year in 2050. The
results indicate a significant role of AM technologies in helping society meet its long-term energy use
and GHG emissions reduction goals, and highlight barriers and opportunities for AM adoption for the
aircraft industry.
