Characterising energy and eco-efficiency of injection moulding processes

Abstract

In the age of climate awareness, energy and eco-efficiency have become an issue of great importance, particularly in the field of manufacturing. Due to the dynamic nature of manufacturing processes, reducing their energy consumption and the associated environmental impacts require knowledge about energy consumption as a function of shop-floor processes and their process parameters. However, the industrial average data were normally used for the energy estimation or life cycle assessment, which may underestimate the energy consumption 10-fold than the actual consumption in some cases. Alternatively, this paper proposes an empirical approach to characterise the energy efficiency on different injection moulding machine tools. The derived models offer a unique ability to predict energy consumption of a given machine tool with an accuracy of over 90%, which can also improve the quality of current life cycle inventory database. The eco-efficiency of the injection moulding process has also been discussed in this paper. The inverse of specific energy consumption models can be directly used for evaluating the eco-efficiency, since injection moulding processes mainly consume electricity in a dynamic manner. The throughput rate has been found as a decisive factor for the energy and eco-efficiency of injection moulding processes.