Session: 03-02 LCA

Paper Number: 123183

123183 - A Carbon Footprint Comparison Through LCA of Forging vs. Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) Processes for the Internal Casing of a Gas Turbine 

The European Commission is increasingly investing efforts on regulating and standardizing Environmental Footprint (EF) for both Products and Organizations. In the framework of UN Agenda 2030, being proactive in performing Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and environmental impact assessments on their products, is becoming of vital importance for companies, as well as having internal initiatives for carbon reduction and implementation of eco-design practices.. Energy and turbomachinery industries are focal points in this context, and these industries should pioneer such initiatives. For a consolidated industry as the turbomachinery one, it is important to assess the environmental impact of their more traditional processes and products, such as gas turbines comparing them to innovative ones. As a case study, this paper showcases a carbon footprint evaluation of two different manufacturing processes, taking internal case of gas turbines as an example. These items are commonly manufactured by forging process, the aim of this paper is to compare the carbon footprint of traditional forged parts to the footprint they could have if realized by the Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) process. The applied methodology is Life Cycle Assessment as per ISO 14040:2006 and ISO 14044:2006, using EF 1.03 as calculation method. Modelling was performed  on SimaPro software and for background data EcoInvent (vv. 3.5) was employed. In addition, uncertainty of the results of both the technologies have been assessed using the pedigree matrix.

Presenting Author: Rachele Orlandi Baker Hughes

Presenting Author Biography: Rachele Orlandi is Design Engineer for Engine Systems Design for Turbine and Axial Expanders at Baker Hughes since 2021. In this role, her main focus is on Design to Cost and Sustainability: main responsibilities are to lead cost reduction projects, to formulate design to cost and design to sustainability contents, to perform Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) analysis on components and production technologies. A paper by Rachele on Design to Cost & Sustainability was presented at ASME TurboExpo2022.
Since 2022, Rachele is also doing a PhD at University of Perugia, "Energy and Sustainable Development", about sustainability themes, focusing on design to sustainability and carbon reduction and Life Cycle Costing (LCC), which scope is to implement sustainability since the early design stages also considering costs.
She had her Bachelor Degree in Mechanical Engineering at University of Rome "La Sapienza", and her Master Degree in Energy Engineering at University of Florence with a master thesis on steel sector decarbonization "Energy and Sustainability assessment of an integrated steel making and slow pyrolisys process".
Rachele loves travelling and discover foreign cultures, landscapes and food.

Authors:

Rachele Orlandi Baker Hughes
Martina Pucciarelli Baker Hughes
Giacomo Ragni Baker Hughes
Angela Serra Baker Hughes
Francesco Fantozzi University of Perugia