• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.30 no.11 s.254
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• pp.1107-1116
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• 2006

The droplet ejection process driven by an evaporating bubble in a thermal inkjet printhead is investigated by numerically solving the conservation equations for mass, momentum and energy. The phase interfaces are tracked by a level set method which is modified to include the effect of phase change at the interface and extended for multiphase flows with irregular solid boundaries. The compressibility effect of a bubble is also included in the analysis to appropriately describe the bubble expansion behaviour associated with the high pressure caused by bubble nucleation. The whole process of bubble growth and collapse as well as droplet ejection during thermal inkjet printing is simulated without employing a simplified semi-empirical bubble growth model. Based on the numerical results, the jet breaking and droplet formation behaviour is observed to depend strongly on the bubble growth and collapse pattern. Also, the effects of liquid viscosity, surface tension and nozzle geometry are quantified from the calculated bubble growth rate and ink droplet ejection distance.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.65-70
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• 2012

The droplet ejection behavior from drop-on-demand printhead are investigated numerically in terms of the non-dimensional parameters. The numerical simulation is performed using a volume-of-fluid model. It is important to eject droplet within the printability range, where the droplet is ejected in stable manner without satellite droplets. Generally, the printability range has been determined by Z number, which is the inverse of Oh number. However, it is found that the ejection of droplets with same Z number can exhibit different behavior depending on the value of Ca and We number. Therefore, it is insufficient to determine the printability range only with Z number. Instead, other non-dimensional parameters, such as Ca and We number, should be considered comprehensively.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.59 no.9
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• pp.1632-1637
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• 2010

A micro-water-nozzle, as one of a cooling means of micro-electronic devices, has been proposed and investigated. The I-V characteristics of the micro-water-nozzle and effect of applied voltage on the meniscus formation and deformation and ejection processes of de-ionized water on the micro-water-nozzle tip have been investigated. The water ejection processes, such as a drop formation, a drop deformation, a dripping, a cone jet, and an atomization, were taken place on the micro-water-nozzle tip by the electrohydrodynamic forces acted by the DC and AC high voltages applied on the meniscus of the micro-water-nozzle tip. The I-V characteristics of the micro-water-nozzle-to-plate electrode system were different from that of the same metal-point electrode system, due to the meniscus formation and water droplet ejection at the nozzle tip. The positive and negative DC and AC high voltages showed the water droplets ejection, the ejection rates of 1.8, 1.5 and 1.2 g/h respectively, which, however, showed that the proposed micro-water-nozzle-to-plate electrode system could be used as one of an effective pumping means.

• 한국가시화정보학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.128-133
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• 2007

An electrostatic inkjet head can be used for manufacturing processes of large display systems and printed circuit boards (PCB) as well as inkjet printers because an electrostatic field provides an external force which can be manipulated to control sizes of droplets. The existing printing methods such as thermal bubble and piezo inkjet heads have shown difficulties to control the ejection of the droplets for printing applications. Thus, the new inkjet head has been proposed using the electrostatic force. A numerical analysis has been performed to calculate the intensity of the electrostatic field using the Maxwell's equation. Also, experiments have been carried out to investigate the droplet movement using a downward capillary with outside diameter of $500{\mu}m$. Gravity, surface tension, and electrostatic force have been analyzed with high voltages for a drop-on-demand ejection. It has been observed that the droplet size decreases and the frequency of the droplet formation and the velocity of the droplet ejection increase with increasing the intensity of the electrostatic field using high-speed camera.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.58 no.10
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• pp.2005-2010
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• 2009

Water droplet ejection characteristics of a point-to-plate airgap, with a wet porous point as a corona electrode, has been investigated. And the water droplet traces, charge, mass and number were measured experimentally. More particles are observed with wet porous point than metal point because the corona-discharging wet porous point can eject a number of water droplets. The water droplets ejected from the positive-corona-discharging wet porous point showed very fine traces as compared with those from the negative-corona-discharging wet porous point. Moreover, the water droplets ejected from the AC-corona-discharging wet porous point showed granular-like larger traces. It was shown that the weak corona discharge can eject smaller water droplets with larger ratio of mass-to-charge than the intense corona discharge.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.451-454
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• 2007

This paper presents the pattern characteristic using the electrostatic drop-on-demand ink-jet printing system. In order to achieve the pattern characteristic of electrostatic inkjet printing, the capillary inkjet head system is fabricated using capillary tube, Pt wire and electrode, and is packaged by acrylic board for the accurate alignment between wire and electrode-hole. The applied DC voltage of 1.4 $\sim$ 2.0 kV used for the observation of electrostatic droplet ejection. Electrostatic droplet ejection is directly observed using a high-speed camera. For investigated pattern characteristic, conductive inkjet silver ink used. The higher voltage has a good condition which has micro dripping mode. Also, the droplet size decreases with increasing the supplied DC voltage. This paper shows the pattern which is formed by about 300um. Also, capillary inkjet head system will be applied industrial area comparing conventional electrostatic inkjet head system.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.08a
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• pp.505-508
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• 2006

An electrostatic ink jet head can be used for manufacturing processes of large display systems and printed circuit boards (PCB) as well as inkjet printers because an electrostatic field provides an external force which can be manipulated to control sizes of droplets. The existing printing methods such as thermal bubble and piezo inkjet heads have shown difficulties to control the ejection of the droplets for printing applications. Thus, the new inkjet head using the electrostatic force has been proposed in this study. In order to prove the theory of the developed electrostatic ink jet head, the applicable and basic theory has been studied using distilled water and water with sodium dodecyl surfate (SDS). Also, a numerical analysis has been performed to calculate the intensity of the electrostatic field using the Maxwell's equation. Furthermore, experiments have been carried out using a downward glass capillary with outside diameter of $500{\mu}m$. The gravity, surface tension, and electrostatic force have been analyzed with high voltages of 0 to 5kV. It has been observed that the droplet size decreases and the frequency of the droplet formation and the velocity of the droplet ejection increase with increasing the intensity of the electrostatic field. The results of the experiments have shown good agreement with those of numerical analysis.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.33-38
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• 2012

The droplet ejection behavior from drop-on-demand printhead are investigated numerically for Newtonian and shear-thinning fluid. The numerical simulation is performed using a volume-of-fluid model. In this study, we compare the printable range in terms of Z number and pinch-off time for Newtonian and shear-thinning fluids. The printability range are found to be 1.08 $$\leq_-$$ Z $$\leq_-$$ 12.9 for Newtonian fluid and 0.8 $$\leq_-$$ Z $$\leq_-$$ 12.9 for shear-thinning fluid. However, air entrainment is observed during merging of primary and satellite droplet within the printability range. The pinch-off time of the shear-thinning fluid is apparently shorter compared to the corresponding Newtonian fluid due to shear-thinning effects and the differences in the pinch-off time is enlarged significantly when the capillary number is larger than 0.5.

• Journal of Institute of Convergence Technology
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.34-40
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• 2011

In this paper, a hybrid design tool combining one-dimensional(1D) lumped model and three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics(CFD) approach has been developed in order to evaluate the performance of inkjet print head and droplet control process are studied to reduce the deviations between nozzles which affect the size of the printed line for the industrial application of direct writing on printed circuit boards(PCB). 1D lumped model analysis shows that it is useful tool for evaluating performance of an inkjet head by varying the design parameters. The differences in ejected volume and droplet velocity between analytical and experimental result are within 12%. Time sequence of droplet generation is verified by the comparison between 3D analysis result and photographic images acquired by stroboscopic technique. In addition, by applying DPN process, velocity and volume uniformity between nozzles is dramatically improved that the tolerance achieved by the piezoelectric inkjet printhead across the 64 nozzles is 5 to 8%. A printed line pattern is successfully obtained using the fabricated inkjet print head and droplet calibration system.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.1742-1746
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• 2008

An EHD (Electro-Hydro-Dynamic) jet for electrostatic inkjet head shows advantages to print micro-size patterns using various inks because it can generate sub-micron droplets and can use highly viscous inks. Thus, many researchers in industrial fields are concerned about the EHD jet in these days. Since the basic principle of the EHD jet is to form a droplet from an apex of meniscus at the end of the nozzle, the ejection mechanism can be changed by the shape of the meniscus. The stable ejection of the droplet is greatly affected by the shape of the meniscus which is also influenced by surface characteristics of the nozzle, electric potential and ink properties. Experiments have been performed using the nozzles with hydrophilic and hydrophobic coatings in this study. The hydrophobic nozzle forms the stable droplets in wider range of the electric potential than the hydrophilic nozzle does.