• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.337-342
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• 2022

Although printing technology has recently been widely used in IT fields including displays and fuel cells, residual and thermal stress are generated by a manufacturing process of stacking the layers of the print head and result in the substrate deformation and nozzle plate crack, which may cause ink leaks or not be ejected onto a desired region. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a new design of thermal inkjet print head with a robust and reliable structure. Diverse types of inkjet print head such as a rib, pillar, support wall and individual feed hole are designed to reduce the deformation of the substrate and nozzle plate, and their feasibility is numerically investigated through FEA analysis. The numerical results show that the maximum stress and deformation of proposed print head dramatically drops to at least 40~50%, and it is confirmed that there is no nozzle plate cracks and ink leakage through the fabrication of pillar and support wall typed print head. Therefore, it is expected that the proposed head shape can be applied not only to ink ejection in the normal direction, but also to large-area printing technology.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.529-534
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• 2023

Although line printing technology is capable of high-speed and large area printing, residual stresses generated during the manufacturing process can deform the feedhole, causing nozzle plate crack or ink leaks. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a new thermal inkjet print head that is robust, reliable and more suitable for line-printing. The amount of deformation of the conventional line printing head measured through the experiment was converted into an equivalent load, and the validity of the load estimation method was verified through FEA analysis. In addition, in order to minimize deformation without increasing the head size, the head structure was designed to increase internal rigidity by reinforcing the unit nozzle with a pillar or support wall or by adding a support beam or dry/wet etched bridge. The FEA analysis results show that the feedhole deformation was reduced by up to 90%, and it is confirmed that the suggested print head with dry etched feedhole bridge operates normally without nozzle plate cracks and ink leakage through fabrication.