Environmental impact analysis method of a steam turbine component welding process

Environmental impact assessment during the initial design phases is essential to guide designers towards more eco-sustainable choices. This paper proposes a method to parameterize production processes considering the energy and material contributions involved. The case study focuses on the welding process of a component of a steam turbine. The goal of the method is to obtain functions that, parameterized with respect to the mass of the finished component, determine the consumption of the process. The functions are obtained considering different dimensionally scaled components. Commercial software was used to calculate the process times and mass flows.