The inhalation and the deposition of welding-generated ultrafine particles in welders’ respiratory tracts have been linked to severe pulmonary impairments. In the present study, a mobile aerosol lung deposition apparatus (MALDA) was developed and applied to study the respiratory deposition of ultrafine welding fume particles. The MALDA was constructed with a set of physiologically representative human tracheobronchial airway replicas made with high-resolution 3D printers. Ultrafine welding fume particles were generated in a welding fume chamber and delivered to the MALDA. A series of respiratory deposition experiments were carried out using the MALDA to investigate the deposition of ultrafine welding fume particles in different airway generations of the tracheobronchial airways. The results showed that the fractional deposition of ultrafine welding fume particle in the human tracheobronchial airways down to the 9^th airway generation could be readily and systematically measured by the MALDA. The estimated cumulative respiratory deposition ranged from approximately 9–31% for ultrafine welding fume particles between 10 and 100 nm in diameter. The results acquired demonstrated that the MALDA developed has the potential to become a useful apparatus in the future to estimate the respiratory deposition of ultrafine particles in real workplaces.

焊接产生的超细颗粒在焊工呼吸道中的吸入和沉积与严重的肺功能障碍有关。在本研究中，开发了一种移动式气溶胶肺沉积设备（MALDA），并将其用于研究超细焊接烟尘颗粒的呼吸沉积。MALDA是用高分辨率3D打印机制作的一组具有生理学代表性的人气管支气管气道复制品构建的。在焊接烟尘室中产生了超细的焊接烟尘颗粒，并输送到MALDA。使用MALDA进行了一系列呼吸沉积实验，以研究超细焊接烟雾颗粒在气管支气管气道的不同气道中的沉积。^个气道生成可以由马尔达被容易地和系统地测量。对于直径在10到100 nm之间的超细焊接烟尘颗粒，估计的累积呼吸沉积约为9-31％。获得的结果表明，开发的MALDA有潜力成为将来评估实际工作场所中超细颗粒呼吸沉积的有用仪器。