Aerodynamic effect on inkjet main drop and satellite dot placement
Recent Progress in Ink Jet Technologies II, IS&T, (1999)Abstract
With the development of inkjet technology, high-speed printing was enabled with wider printhead and/or higher carriage scan speed. Photo quality images were achieved with smaller drops and multi-level, high-resolution printing.Due to the inherent features of thermal inkjet, the aerodynamic effect will be more significant in the future inkjet development.This paper presents the numerical simulation of the aerodynamic effect on inkjet main drop and satellite dot placement. In this model, the stationary flow and plane Couette flow were used to simplify the flow patterns underneath the printhead. Non-spherical drop shape and evaporation were neglected. Droplets were traced with the Lagrangian approach. The aerodynamic effect on main drop and satellite motion and dot placement were simulated in three simplified cases and correlated with print samples.This model can also be used to simulate the aerodynamic effect on future inkjet printing with small drops and/or with high scan speed.