Combining additive and subtractive metal processes to a hybrid additive manufacturing chain
not only enables the production of parts with application-oriented design but also leads to
increased resource efficiency especially when combined in an industrial robotic cell.
Compared to parts manufactured through subtractive processes from full material the hybrid
additive manufacturing chain is considered to be resource efficient due to reduced material
consumption. However, the energy consumption of the hybrid additive process is considered
higher because of the use of laser for the additive process.
It is assumed that the decreased material consumption outweighs the higher energy
consumption regarding the resource efficiency but until now it is not investigated. Therefore,
in this paper the resource consumption of the robot-based hybrid additive manufacturing chain
including the wire based direct energy deposition process and the milling process is analysed
through measurements during experiments and compared to subtractive processes using the
carbon footprint as a reference.Mechanical Engineerin
