Additive Manufacturing for Circular Manufacturing: Trends and Challenges—A Survey in Japan, Norway, and India

Circular manufacturing such as product remanufacturing, refurbishment, and repair is a key element in promoting a circular economy, whereas enhancing its resource-efficiency-increasing-effects is often dictated by the critical process of material surface restoration. One of the key technologies that enable effective material surface and geometry restoration is additive manufacturing (AM). This study presents, firstly, a survey of the existing industrial usage of AM in circular manufacturing, which includes applications of re-coating, cladding, and thermal spray. The survey was mainly conducted in three countries, namely, Japan, Norway and India. Secondly, the study presents a review of research and development of the applications of metal 3D printing—an advanced AM. Challenges hindering the promotion of AM applications in circular manufacturing are laid on a process-to-process basis. In general, such challenges include advancement of process automations, design for restoration, quality enhancement of metal 3D printing-based restoration, and cost reduction of the process applications.