Droplets Deposition Forming Technology Based On Pulsated Orifice Ejection Method

Droplets deposition forming technology, as a new kind of rapid prototyping method, has been developed rapidly in recent years. This technology has its unique advantages for manufacturing thin-walled parts, micro parts or parts with complex shape. This method can combine deflection electric field or three dimensional platform with droplets ejection to deposit droplets one by one precisely to fabricate parts. Both metal materials and non-metallic materials can be used for this method, and this breaks through the traditional methods. Pulsated Orifice Ejection Method (POEM), as the droplets ejection method, can prepare droplets with mono-size, narrow distribution and high sphericity. So this method can ensure the deposition accuracy of this system.In this paper, micro-droplets deposition forming system has been developed successfully which combines POEM and three dimensional platform based on the principle of rapid prototyping. Each part of the system has been introduced in details, the feasibility and accuracy of system have been discussed as well.A series of experiments have been carried out using Sn63-Pb37 alloy as raw material. Several parameters such as droplets ejection frequency, velocity of platform, deposition height and line spacing have been discussed and better parameter ranges were given. The vertical column with good flatness and rational diameter was obtained when the frequency of ejection gets around 5-10Hz. The overlapping with no voids between adjacent droplets and good deposition quality was fabricated when the velocity of platform reaches around 500-600?m/s in lines deposition. The lines with good overlapping and no deviation was obtained under the condition of 40-50mm as deposition height. The overlapping with no voids between adjacent droplets was fabricated when the line spacing reaches around 300?m. Based on the above results, the parameter ranges can be used as better parameters.Based on the above better parameters, several thin wall components and solid parts were successfully obtained. The deposited parts were with good flatness, good accuracy and refined grain size, so the deposition quality is good.