Acoustic measurement of bubble size and position in a piezo driven inkjet printhead
Arjan van der Bos, Roger J.M. Jeurissen, Jos de Jong, Richard Stevens, Michel Versluis, Hans Reinten, Marc van den Berg, Herman M. A. Wijshoff, Detlef Lohse · Bulletin of the American Physical Society · 2008
A bubble can be entrained in the ink channel of a piezo-driven ink jet printhead leading to malfunction. Here, an acoustic sizing method for the volume and position of the bubble is presented. The influence of the bubble on the channel acoustics is detected by the piezo-actuator operating in a sensing mode. The acoustic response is also modeled in a linearized bubble dynamics model and it is demonstrated how the size of the bubble and its position within the channel can be inferred from the inverse problem. The validity of the presented method is supported by time-resolved optical observations of the bubble dynamics visualized in a glass connection channel. The combined optical and acoustical recordings are compared to the model, where a very good agreement is found.