A comparative evaluation of energy consumption of selective laser sintering and injection molding of nylon parts

Additive manufacturing is often advocated as a sustainable alternative to competing manufacturing technologies. This research study focuses on estimating and comparing the energy consumption required for different production volumes of nylon parts using either selective laser sintering (SLS) or injection molding (IM) . For IM & SLS, energy consumption is estimated for nylon material refinement and part fabrication. For fM, energy consumption is also estimated for manufacturing the injection molds and refining their metal feedstock. A paintball gun handle serves as a representative part for calculating and normalizing material flows and processing times. For different sets of assumptions, cross-over production vol umes are calcu lated, at which the per-part energy consumption of the two processes is equivalent. These energy-based cross-over production vo lumes are compared to similar economic cross-over production volumes available in the literature.