Dominant Factors of Metal Jet Breakup in Micro Droplet Deposition Manufacturing Technique

Abstract For the solutions of random variations of metal jet breakup and difficulties in controlling and predicting the process parameters (e.g. jet length) in micro droplet deposition manufacturing technique, experimental methods combining with theoretical analyses have been developed. The jet formation, jet length and their dominant factors (oxygen concentration and disturbance frequency, etc.) are discussed. The statistical law of jet length is found that the probability density function (PDF) of jet length is a log-normal distribution. The results show that the formation and size accuracy of metal jet breakup are improved by adjusting the gas pressure and optimizing the disturbance frequency. Under this circumstance, the jet length and morphological deviation can be minimized, which provides a stable droplet stream for the subsequent manufacturing process.