Computation of aluminum droplet ejection and flight in microgravity

Abstract

Persistent and frequent space explorations are limited by real-time parts supply and it is significant to achieve space manufacture, such as the droplet-based printing. In order to study the microgravity environment effect on droplet-based printing, this paper proposed an effective method to research the effect of space station environmental g-jitter (according to NASA experimental signal) on droplet ejection and flight process. The heat transfer, transient gravity acceleration and Marangoni effect are studied based on the improved model. The results show that the g-jitter is in the order of 10−3 magnitude and the effect on aluminum droplet ejection could be ignored when nozzle diameter (dn) is smaller than 0.1 mm and so do ground case. Combined with the ground microgravity simulation of SnPb alloy lateral ejection experiments, it can be obtained that the ejected single droplet is characterized by capillary number (Ca≤0.002), the droplet flight trajectory is dependent on the Froude number (Fr) and the laminar-turbulence transition exists during the droplet flight process. The relationship formulation between the deviation along gravity direction and the deposition distance is introduced to control and adjust the droplet flight trajectory. Moreover, the temperature effect on material property, such as surface tension and so on, has effect on the droplet breakup length. The g-jitter field enhances the Marangoni effect resulting in the deviation of droplet trajectory. In microgravity field, the computational droplet oscillation period is well coincidence with theoretical equation. Improved KIC-SST based model is available for simulating droplet-based printing in microgravity.