Balancing Ultrafine Particle Emissions and Part Quality in Nylon 3D Printing through Manufacturing Parameter Optimization

In recent years, Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 3D printing has become a rapid manufacturing technique because it produces complex parts layer-by-layer, reducing production cycle times compared to traditional machining.Despite these advantages, this technology emits harmful contaminants for human health, primarily ultrafine particles (UFPs).Recent studies have highlighted that manufacturing parameters can play a significant role in UFP emissions.Other studies have examined the effect of manufacturing parameters on the quality of printed parts without taking UFP emissions into account.This paper reconciles public health and technology by presenting a methodology to optimize both UFP concentration and part quality, i.e., surface roughness (Ra), dimensional accuracy (∆V%), and tensile strength (TS) of nylon components.In this work, a Design of Experiments (DoE) approach is adopted to quantify the effects of the main manufacturing parameters (printing temperature, printing speed and layer height) on UFP concentration and part quality outputs.The findings indicate that the printing temperature is the most influential parameter for reducing UFP concentration.In contrast, the layer height is the most influential parameter for improving Ra, ∆V%, and TS.Our optimized parameters significantly reduce UFP concentration by approximately 76%, with a minimal increase in Ra of 1.4%, a 59.4% improvement in ∆V%, and a decrease in TS of 12.6% compared to the manufacturer's settings.