Abstract:

Inkjet printing as a kind of 3D printing technology and method has the advantages of high utilization rate of materials, flexible manufacture, and short manufacturing cycle and so on. In recent years, the inkjet printing technology has become one of the research focus in the manufacturing ceramic components. To successfully fabricate ceramic components, some certain conditions should be satisfied, such as the rheological properties of printing ink, the factors of stable droplets formulation, the location accuracy of printing for droplets, the eliminating and inhibiting coffee ring. The mechanism of piezoelectric inkjet printing ceramic components is reviewed, mainly including the influence of ceramic ink properties and piezoelectric pulse parameters on the formation of stable droplets, the analysis of droplets falling process and its location accuracy of impacting substrate, the generation and elimination for the coffee ring in the drying process, the numerical simulation during the formulation of droplets, and the applications of inkjet printing in ceramics forming. Finally, a prospect of ceramics inkjet printing is proposed.

Key words: ceramic components, coffee ring, droplets, numerical simulation, inkjet printing