Quantification of environmental impacts of abrasive water jet cutting process through sustainability analysis

Sustainable development is the view that social, economic and environmental concerns should be addressed simultaneously and holistically in the development process. Sustainability has been applied to many fields, including engineering, manufacturing and design. Manufacturers are becoming increasingly concerned about the issue of sustainability. Appropriate trade-offs are often necessary, given the diverse interests of manufacturers and society. Relevant, meaningful, consistent and robust information on sustainable manufacturing must be available and utilised by organisations and their managers, if sustainability is to improve in manufacturing. In this perspective an effort has been made by conducting experimental studies on waste water obtained by machining mild steel plate using abrasive water jet cutting machine to examine the traces of metallic bodies and their impact on the environment. Studies were also conducted to calculate the embodied product energy of the process. Results from the experiment confirmed the presence of metallic particles and proved the necessity of treating these particles.