A comprehensive study on the droplet formation processes and its influencing factors of a tubular piezoelectric print head

Various inks with different properties are widely used in the printed electronic industry. In order to obtain high quality inkjet printing, it is necessary to study the droplet formation process and its influencing factors comprehensively. Only in this way, the incentive conditions and liquid physical parameters of droplet ejection can be obtained and optimized. Firstly, the calculation model of the droplet ejection process is established for a tubular print head and the boundary conditions are set according to the driving characteristics. Secondly, the free surface flow is calculated in the simulation software and sequential pictures of the droplet formation processes are captured to validate the availability of the numerical algorithm. Finally, the droplet formation processes of the tubular piezoelectric print head are simulated under different incentive conditions, different viscosities and different surface tensions. Too small a driving energy is insufficient to cause the head to eject droplets. Excessive excitation energy will result in larger or multiple satellite droplets. Additionally, the thinning process of the liquid neck is examined carefully in this paper. Results show that surface tension and viscosity have a significant effect on the thinning speed of the liquid neck, but the effect is not as significant as previous studies.