Numerical and Experimental Analysis of Piezoelectric Inkjet*

Inkjet technology has diverse industrial applications, such as document printing, display panel manufacturing, additive manufacturing, and so on. With the increasing demand for small droplet jetting, a deeper understanding of the drop formation mechanism is essential. In this study, the jetting dynamics of the piezoelectric inkjet head was analyzed through both numerical and experimental methods. The inkjet head consists of a cylindrical flow channel and a conical nozzle. The droplet ejection and meniscus motion were captured using an inkjet monitoring system with the high-intensity pulsed light. Due to the limited visibility of the experiment, numerical method was used to analyze the flow and pressure inside the inkjet head. An improved model was developed to simulate the overall process of the jetting. The model employed volume of fluid (VOF) method for the multi-phase flow calculation and the dynamic mesh method for driving the piezo actuator. Consequently, the numerical results showed good agreement with the experimental results for both jetting performance and the meniscus motion.