3D printing is predicted to grow and underpin distributed manufacture of customized and geometrically complex products. At this early stage of technology development it is timely to consider and optimize the resource efficiency of these layered manufacturing technologies. In this work, the direct electrical energy demand in one of the most popular technologies, fused deposition modelling was studied and a generic model for direct energy demand in layered manufacture proposed. To explore the variability of energy demand according to machine systems, three different FDM machines were evaluated. The performance of Fused Deposition Modelling was further benchmarked to machining processes in order to throw light on the relative energy demands for alternative manufacturing processes. The work is a foundation for electrical energy demand modelling and optimisation for the rapidly expanding 3D printing processes.
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