Sustainability Assessment: Cryogenic Machining of Inconel 718

This paper disseminates the foreground of sustainable cryogenic machining technology that has a high potential to cut production costs and improve competitiveness by reducing resource consumption and creating less waste. The sustainability issues on a shop floor level are pointed out via a life cycle assessment, concluding that the future of sustainable production is going to entail the use of cryogenic machining to reduce environmental burdens and health risks, while increasing machining performance and profitability In addition, machining evaluation is covered by an experimental study undertaken to understand the likely impacts of the use of cryogenic technology on production costs. The case study refers to the machining of high-temperature Ni-alloy (Inconel 718). It is shown that tooling costs greatly contribute to the total production cost and that cryogenic machining offers a clean and a cost-effective route to improve sustainability performance in comparison to conventional machining. (C) 2011 Journal of Mechanical Engineering. All rights reserved.