Influences of excitation on dynamic characteristics of piezoelectric micro-jets

Piezoelectric micro-jets are based on piezoelectric ink-jet technology and can achieve the drop-on demand requirements. A piezoelectric micro-jet which is designed for bearing lubrication is presented in this paper. In order to analyze the fluid dynamic characteristics of the piezoelectric micro-jet so as to obtain good injection performance, a direct coupling simulation method is proposed in this paper. The effects of inlet and viscous losses in the cavity are taken into account, which are close to the actual conditions in the direct coupling method. The effects of the pulse excitation parameters on the pinch-off time, tail length, velocity, and volume of the droplet are analyzed by the proposed direct coupling method. The pressure distribution inside the cavity of the micro-jet and the status of the droplet formation at different times are also given. In addition, the method is proved to be effective in predicting and analyzing the fluid dynamic characteristics of piezoelectric micro-jets by comparing the simulation results with the experimental results.