TY - JOUR A1 - Chang, Y.-J. A1 - Sproesser, G. A1 - Neugebauer, S. A1 - Wolf, K. A1 - Scheumann, R. A1 - Pittner, Andreas A1 - Rethmeier, Michael A1 - Finkbeiner, M. T1 - Environmental and social life cycle assessment of welding technologies N2 - Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) are applied in evaluating possible social and environmental impacts of the state-of-art welding technologies, such as Manual Metal Arc Welding (MMAW), Manual Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW), Automatic GMAW and Automatic Laser-Arc Hybrid Welding (LAHW). The LCA results indicate that for 1 meter weld seam, MMAW consumes the largest amount of resources (like filler material and coating on electrodes) and energy, which contributes to comparatively higher environmental impacts in global warming potential, acidification, photochemical ozone creation potential and eutrophication than other chosen processes. With regard to social aspects, the health issues and fair salary are under survey to compare the relative potential risk on human health caused by fumes in different welding technologies, and to indicate the sufficiency of current salary of welders in Germany. The results reflect that the wage status of welders is still fair and sufficient. The manual processes bring much higher potential risk of welders’ health than the automatic processes, especially MMAW. KW - Fair salary KW - Human health KW - Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) KW - Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) KW - Welding PY - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2014.07.084 SN - 2212-8271 VL - 26 SP - 293 EP - 298 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam [u.a.] AN - OPUS4-33036 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sproesser, G. A1 - Chang, Y.-J. A1 - Pittner, Andreas A1 - Finkbeiner, M. A1 - Rethmeier, Michael T1 - Energy efficiency and environmental impacts of high power gas metal arc welding N2 - Single-wire gas metal arc welding (SGMAW) and high power tandem GMAW (TGMAW) are evaluated with respect to energy efficiency. The key performance indicator electrical deposition efficiency is applied to reflect the energy efficiency of GMAW in different material transfer modes. Additionally, the wall-plug efficiency of the equipment is determined in order to identify the overall energy consumption. The results show that energy efficiency can be increased by 24% and welding time is reduced over 50% by application of the tandem processes. A comparative life cycle assessment of a 30-mm-thick weld is conducted to investigate the influences of the energy efficiency on the environmental impacts. The environmental impacts on the categories global warming potential, acidification potential, eutrophication potential, and photochemical ozone creation potential can be reduced up to 11% using an energy-efficient TGMAW process. KW - Tandem gas metal arc welding KW - Life cycle assessment (LCA) KW - Energy efficiency KW - High power welding PY - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-017-9996-7 SN - 0268-3768 SN - 1433-3015 VL - 91 IS - 9-12 SP - 3503 EP - 3513 PB - Springer CY - London AN - OPUS4-39564 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sproesser, G. A1 - Chang, Y.-J. A1 - Pittner, Andreas A1 - Finkbeiner, M. A1 - Rethmeier, Michael T1 - Environmental energy efficiency of single wire and tandem gas metal arc welding N2 - This paper investigates gas metal arc welding (GMAW) with respect to energy consumption and its associated environmental impacts. Different material transfer modes and power levels for single wire GMAW (SGMAW) and tandem GMAW (TGMAW) are evaluated by means of the indicator electrical deposition efficiency. Furthermore, the wall-plug efficiency of the equipment is measured in order to describe the total energy consumption from the electricity grid. The results show that the energy efficiency is highly affected by the respective process and can be significantly enhanced by a TGMAW process. The wall-plug efficiency of the equipment shows no significant dependency on the power range or the material transfer mode. Moreover, the method of life cycle assessment (LCA) is adopted in order to investigate the influences of energy efficient welding on the environmental impacts. In the comparative LCA study, the demand of electrical energy is reduced up to 24%. In consequence, the indicator values for global warming potential (100), acidification potential, eutrophication potential, and photochemical ozone creation potential are reduced up to 11%. KW - Energy input KW - Tandem welding KW - MAG welding KW - Environment KW - Lifetime PY - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s40194-017-0460-y SN - 0043-2288 SN - 1878-6669 VL - 61 IS - 4 SP - 733 EP - 743 PB - Springer CY - Heidelberg AN - OPUS4-39877 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ward, H. A1 - Burger, M. A1 - Chang, Y.-J. A1 - Fürstmann, P. A1 - Neugebauer, S. A1 - Radebach, A. A1 - Sproesser, G. A1 - Pittner, Andreas A1 - Rethmeier, Michael A1 - Uhlmann, E. A1 - Steckel, J. Ch. T1 - Assessing carbon dioxide emission reduction potentials of improved manufacturing processes using multiregional input output frameworks N2 - Evaluating innovative process technologies has become highly important within the last decades. As standard tools different Life Cycle Assessment methods have been established, which are continuously improved. While those are designed for evaluating single processes they run into difficulties when it comes to assessing environmental impacts of process innovations at macroeconomic level. In this paper we develop a multi-step evaluation framework building on multi regional inputeoutput data that allows estimating macroeconomic impacts of new process technologies, considering the network characteristics of the global economy. Our procedure is as follows: i) we measure differences in material usage of process alternatives, ii) we identify where the standard processes are located within economic networks and virtually replace those by innovative process technologies, iii) we account for changes within economic systems and evaluate impacts on emissions. Within this paper we exemplarily apply the methodology to two recently developed innovative technologies: longitudinal large diameter steel pipe welding and turning of high-temperature resistant materials. While we find the macroeconomic impacts of very specific process innovations to be small, its conclusions can significantly differ from traditional process based approaches. Furthermore, information gained from the methodology provides relevant additional insights for decision makers extending the picture gained from traditional process life cycle assessment. KW - Economic wide technology replacement KW - Sustainability assessment KW - Multi-regional inputeoutput data KW - Life-cycle assessment KW - Greenhouse gas mitigation KW - Process innovations PY - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.02.062 SN - 0959-6526 SN - 1879-1786 VL - 163 SP - 154 EP - 165 PB - Elsevier Ltd. AN - OPUS4-41356 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -