Integrating Reliability Analysis and Sustainability Assessment - Illustrating the Potential by Comparison of Additive and Subtractive Manufactured Component Designs

Service life and usage phase are central parameters in life cycle assessment (LCA), but numerical values are often based only on empirical values or estimates. This paper presents a simulation-based co-design of reliability and environmental sustainability for a dynamically loaded PA6-GF30 bracket, comparing additive manufacturing (AM) and milling from plate stock (CNC) under an equal-function constraint. It couples reliability-based design verification with global warming potential (GWP) evaluation and iteratively identifies levers where design optimization can reduce impacts without violating reliability targets. The verification chain comprises beam-theory pre-sizing, strength assessment based on VDI 2016, and finite-element analysis in ANSYS. Material behavior is modeled process specific anisotropic. Sustainability is quantified cradle-to-grave with GWP. A baseline AM design requires increased section height and leg width to meet fatigue requirements, resulting in higher mass and - due to process-related factors - a substantially higher GWP than CNC. Based on the identified levers, function-preserving AM lightweight measures are applied retaining required product lifetime while lowering GWP. Finally, the AM bracket is not only lighter but also results in a lower GWP while maintaining the same reliability as the CNC variant.

Keywords: Reliability, Environmental Sustainability, Co-Design, Product Design, Global Warming Potential (GWP).