One Dimensional Model for Droplet Ejection Process in Inkjet Devices

Abstract

In recent years, physics-based computer models have been increasingly applied to design the drop-on-demand (DOD) inkjet devices. The initial design stage for these devices often requires a fast turnaround time of computer models, because it usually involves a massive screening of a large number of design parameters. Thus, in the present study, a 1D model is developed to achieve the fast prediction of droplet ejection process from DOD devices, including the droplet breakup and coalescence. A popular 1D slender-jet method (Egger, 1994) is adopted in this study. The fluid dynamics in the nozzle region is described by a 2D axisymmetric unsteady Poiseuille flow model. Droplet formation and nozzle fluid dynamics are coupled, and hence solved together, to simulate the inkjet droplet ejection. The arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian method is employed to solve the governing equations. Numerical methods have been proposed to handle the breakup and coalescence of droplets. The proposed methods are implemented in an in-house developed MATLAB code. A series of validation examples have been carried out to evaluate the accuracy and the robustness of the proposed 1D model. Finally, a case study of the inkjet droplet ejection with different Ohnesorge number (Oh) is presented to demonstrate the capability of the proposed 1D model for DOD inkjet process. Our study has shown that 1D model can significantly reduce the computational time (usually less than one minute) yet with acceptable accuracy, which makes it very useful to explore the large parameter space of inkjet devices in a short amount of time.