No abstract

The quality of inkjet printing is impacted by the airflow dynamics in the near vicinity of the printing zone. In particular, at elevated pen-to-paper spacings (PPS), which is crucial for certain applications, the flow within the print gap of an inkjet printer becomes unstable. This can induce a temporal and spatial periodic misplacement of satellite droplets that cause a printing defect known as tiger-stripes. To investigate this flow instability, a two-dimensional computational model is developed and refined to accurately capture the flow features.

Analysis of the dynamics of complex fluid systems is facilitated by subdivision of the systems into simpler elements. In many instances, such elements can be represented by pipe units, but for parts where multiple conduits are joined proximately, when there can be large area differences or when a geometric subdivision is difficult to create, we must generalize the approach to consider an elemental representation as a matrix of values for the flow resistance and inertance. Here we discuss the theory behind such an approach and give examples of the use of the theory: Asai's inkjet and an arteriovenous fistula.