Applications of life-cycle assessment method for evaluating environmental impacts of subtractive and additive manufacturing processes

Generally, the effectiveness of a manufacturing process is evaluated by considering four attributes, including time, cost, quality, and its flexibility. However, in the context of sustainable development, other attributes such as the consumption efficiency of energy and resources, as well as the environmental impact must be taken into consideration. They must be taken into count simultaneously and equivalently. To evaluate environmental impacts of a product or a manufacturing process, it is necessary to provide tools to analyze the environmental impacts. One of the most well-known tool used for this task is Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) method, which is a standardized tool according to ISO 14040 and updated in 2006. In this chapter, considerable publications in the literature on the applications of LCA for evaluating the environmental impacts of subtractive and additive manufacturing processes have been gathered and analyzed to prove the performance and effectiveness of this method in the manufacturing field. © 2021 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.