Predicting model of resource and environmental burdens for supporting the inventory analysis in welding.

The environmental impacts of welding have attracted huge attention and it became a significant basis to evaluate sustainable manufacturing process. To achieve the environmental impact assessment of welding, the consumption/emission of inventory data should be collected for supporting inventory analysis. Meanwhile, the consumption/emission of these substances in welding is affected by process parameters (such as current, voltage, welding speed, and gas velocity). These parameters were always considered and designed for achieving satisfactory mechanical properties and satisfying the requirements of assembly. However, since the relationship between welding parameters and input/output of inventory data is not clear, the inventory data needs to be re-collected when the process parameters are changed, which is tedious and time-consuming. Thus, a model is proposed for investigating this relationship, which can predict the consumption/emission of inventory data in welding. Moreover, the welding experiment was performed for verifying the effectiveness of the model. The results show that the consumption/emission of inventory data can be predicted and the deviation is changed in the range of 0 to 15%. Meanwhile, the carbon footprint of welding a concrete column framework was calculated for validating the applicability of the method, which demonstrated that the model can help engineers select the appropriate process parameters for achieving greener welding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]