Velocity Profile inside Piezoacoustic Inkjet Droplets in Flight: Comparison between Experiment and Numerical Simulation

Abstract

Inkjet printers fire droplets that travel a thousand times their own radius every second. The dynamics of this process involve a delicate interplay between surface tension and hydrodynamics that have now been experimentally measured in unprecedented detail. Experimental data are compared with analytic predictions to reveal internal velocities within a droplet that likewise vary by many meters per second within a droplet only tens of microns across.