Assessment of sustainability tradeoffs in renewable energy generation and additive manufacturing

• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/D20328705

Renewable energy generation and additive manufacturing are becoming more widespread, in part because of their sustainability benefits, where sustainability is measured by its environmental, economic and social attributes. The first part of the dissertation explores the economic and environmental tradeoffs of using energy generated by onsite roof-mounted high efficiency solar panels to power manufacturing facilities. The System Advisor Model (SAM) was used to investigate viability of solar irradiance for facilities across all of the industrial sectors in all U.S. states using the Manufacturing Energy Consumption Survey (MECS) database. Five case studies further explore the economic feasibility and environmental implications of installing onsite roof-mounted high efficiency solar PV systems for industrial facilities in five select U.S. states (California, Florida, Indiana, New Jersey, and Texas), which have varying levels of solar irradiance, different incentives, and solar policies. Results indicate that lower Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) and positive Net Present Value (NPV) can be achieved under certain conditions with the economic payback time ranging from 3 to 15 years. Energy Pay Back Time (EPBT) could be less than two years for the five select states with the CO2 equivalent abatement cost ranging from $0.5 - $151 per ton. In the second part of the dissertation, economic and social attributes are investigated for the adoption dynamics of metal 3D printed customized (individually-made) medical implants. The study uses system dynamics simulation modeling to characterize the impact of barriers such as insurance policy coverage, and physicians' preferences on the adoption of customized hip and knee implants. The findings indicate that these products can be more cost effective than off-the-shelf implants because of reduction in readmissions, revision surgeries, and recovery duration. Custom implants can also improve patients' quality of life by providing more comfort and better performance. Hence, customized hip and knee implants appear to be more sustainable in the long-term. Distributed additive manufacturing of hip and knee implants onsite within hospitals in Massachusetts can further reduce adverse impacts on environment when powered by onsite solar PVs. Finally, a multi objective facility location allocation problem is modeled as a Mixed Integer Programing (MIP) to determine the optimal number of additive manufacturing centers, their location, and product flow in the network under different demand scenarios. These studies indicate that the adoption of distributed additive manufacturing for personalized healthcare would lead to greater sustainable development.