{rfName}
En

License and Use

Licencia Icono OpenAccess

Altmetrics

Impact on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Analysis of institutional authors

Vila, CCorresponding Author

Share

October 30, 2024
Publications
>
Article

Environmental analysis of selective laser melting in the manufacturing of aeronautical turbine blades

Publicated to: JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION. 246 1-14 - 2020-01-01 246(), DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.119068

Authors:

Torres-Carrillo, Sharon; Siller, Héctor R.; Vila, C.; López, Cecilio; Rodríguez, Ciro A.
[+]

Affiliations

Honeywell Aerosp, Parque Ind Avalos,Vialidad Tabalaopa 8507 - Author
Lab Nacl Manufactura Adit Digital MADiT - Author
Univ North Texas, Dept Engn Technol, North Texas Discovery Pk,3940 North Elm St - Author
Univ Politecn Valencia, Dept Mech Engn & Mat, Camino Vera S-N - Author
See more

Abstract

The exponential growth of additive manufacturing technologies is not only improving production processes to achieve functional requirements for products, but it could also help to minimize environmental impacts. In order to align a green product lifecycle management vision, companies need to implement emerging technologies and define a set of metrics that measure the benefits of the change. Each product requires a particular and optimized manufacturing process plan, and each production phase must achieve a significant reduction of critical metrics for the whole Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). This paper provides a comprehensive and comparative LCA of two manufacturing process plans for the case study of an aircraft engine turbine blade. The first process consists of a combination of Investment Casting and Precision Machining and the second consists in the replacement of Investment casting by Selective Laser Melting as an emergent process for near net shape fabrication. The collected data for the comparison includes Global Warming Potential (GWP), Acidification Potential (AP), Ozone layer Depletion Potential (ODP), Human Toxicity Potential (HTP), and Human Toxicity (HT) with cancer and non-cancer effects. The relative analysis shows that, for the critical indicators, an apparent improvement in CO2 emissions reduction is achieved as well as in the other hazardous emissions. The results showed that the whole lifecycle of Conventional Manufacturing corresponds to 7.32 tons of CO2, while, the emission of the Additive Manufacturing is 7.02 tons of CO2. The results analysis can be used for decision-making, and it can help for facing future comparative works to explore cleaner manufacturing technologies. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
[+]

Keywords

3d printersAdditive manufacturingAdditive manufacturing technologyAdditivesAerospace manufacturingAircraft enginesCarbon dioxideConventional manufacturingDecision makingDiseasesEmission controlEnvironmental analysisEnvironmental impactEnvironmental technologyGlobal warmingGlobal warming potentialHuman toxicity potentialsImpactIndustry, innovation and infrastructureInvestment castingLife cycleLife cycle assessmentLife cycle assessment (lca)Manufacturing technologiesMeltingOzone layerResponsible consumption and productionSelective laser meltingSustainabilityToxicityTurbine componentsTurbomachine blades

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2020, it was in position 3/44, thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Green & Sustainable Science & Technology. Notably, the journal is positioned above the 90th percentile.

From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from World Citations provided by WoS (ESI, Clarivate), it yields a value for the citation normalization relative to the expected citation rate of: 2.87. This indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: ESI Nov 13, 2025)

This information is reinforced by other indicators of the same type, which, although dynamic over time and dependent on the set of average global citations at the time of their calculation, consistently position the work at some point among the top 50% most cited in its field:

  • Weighted Average of Normalized Impact by the Scopus agency: 3.36 (source consulted: FECYT Mar 2025)

Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2026-04-04, the following number of citations:

  • WoS: 76
  • Scopus: 97
[+]

Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2026-04-04:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 234.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 234 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 4.
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 1 (Altmetric).
  • The number of mentions on Wikipedia: 1 (Altmetric).

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

  • The work has been submitted to a journal whose editorial policy allows open Open Access publication.
  • Assignment of a Handle/URN as an identifier within the deposit in the Institutional Repository: http://hdl.handle.net/10251/161696
Continuing with the social impact of the work, it is important to emphasize that, due to its content, it can be assigned to the area of interest of ODS 9 - Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation, ODS 12 - Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns, with a probability of 0% according to the mBERT algorithm developed by Aurora University.
[+]

Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: Mexico; United States of America.

the author responsible for correspondence tasks has been VILA PASTOR, CARLOS.

[+]

Awards linked to the item

The authors want to acknowledge the support of The National Council on Science and Technology (CONACYT) through the following grants PEI#221185, and LN#280867. Additional support was provided by the CONACyT Mixed Scholarships Program, by Universitat Politecnica de Valencia and by the Research Group of Advanced Manufacturing at Tecnologico de Monterrey.
[+]