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Effects of the actuation waveform on the drop size reduction in drop-on-demand inkjet printing

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Abstract

In this study the effects of the actuation waveforms on the droplet generation in a drop-on-demand inkjet printing are studied systematically by numerical simulations. Two different types of waveforms, namely the unipolar and bipolar actuations, are investigated for three fluids with different physical properties. We focus on two key parameters, which are the dwell time and the velocity amplitude. For the unipolar driving, the ejection velocity and the ejected liquid volume are both increased as the velocity amplitude becomes larger. The dwell time only has minor effects on both the ejection velocity and the ejected liquid volume. The ejection velocity decreases significantly for large liquid viscosity, while the influences of viscosity on the ejected liquid volume are much weaker. Four different droplet morphologies and the corresponding parameter ranges are identified. The droplet radius can be successfully reduced to about 40% of the nozzle exit radius. For the bipolar waveforms, same droplet morphologies are observed but with shifted boundaries in the phase space. The minimal radius of stable droplet produced by the bipolar waveforms is even smaller compared to the unipolar ones.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants 91848201, 11988102, 11521202, 11872004, 11802004). The authors also acknowledge the partial support from the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (Grants L172002). A.B. Aqeel would like to thank the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC) for providing Chinese Government Scholarship (CGS). The numerical simulations were performed on the National Super Computing Center in Tianjin, China.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. SKLTCS and Department of Mechanics and Engineering Science, BIC-ESAT, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Anas Bin Aqeel, Muhammad Mohasan, Pengyu Lv, Yantao Yang & Huiling Duan

  2. Department of Mechatronics Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan

    Anas Bin Aqeel

  3. Key Laboratory of High Energy Density Physics, Inertial Fusion Sciences and Application Collaborative Innovation Center of Ministry of Education, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Huiling Duan

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  1. Anas Bin Aqeel
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  2. Muhammad Mohasan
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  3. Pengyu Lv
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  4. Yantao Yang
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  5. Huiling Duan
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Correspondence to Pengyu Lv or Yantao Yang.

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Aqeel, A.B., Mohasan, M., Lv, P. et al. Effects of the actuation waveform on the drop size reduction in drop-on-demand inkjet printing. Acta Mech. Sin. 36, 983–989 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10409-020-00991-y

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