• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.11-18
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• 2000

In precision chemical application increment of biological efficacy with less chemical is the virtue. spraying rate and droplet size is closely related to biological efficacy. this study was performed to develope a spray-control-system that could control spraying rate and droplet size independently. Twin-fluid nozzles were selected and tested to certify if the nozzles were suitable for the objective of this study. Characteritics of the nozzles i.e., spraying rte and droplet size change u8nder the changes of spraying pressure and air pressure were statistically modeled. The model had I to 1 matching property between dependent variables and independent variables. Using the property and the model, inverse relationship could be determined between variables. A feedback spray control system was developed and tested with predetermined error of 5 % in pressure. The system showed 4 % error in spraying rate and 9 % error in droplets size. Performance of the system could be upgraded by fine tuning but, in practical sense keeping air pressure in the field sprayer was the bottle neck of commercialization of the spray system.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.43-47
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• 2010

We demonstrate the droplet bistability in a microchannel which has two symmetric necks that operate as capillary valves. It is shown that there are certain flow conditions, determined by droplet velocity and droplet size, to achieve bistability. Droplet bistabililty allows simple but precise control of droplet at a bifurcation channel. Therefore, by an appropriate channel design to induce droplet bistability, we can distribute droplets at a junction passively in the manner of perfect alternation and perfect switching in the choice of the outlets.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.30 no.12
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• pp.1335-1340
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• 2013

Herein the water film was introduced to the hydrophilic area on the line patterned surface to solve the contradiction caused by surface roughness (high different wettability has advantage to control the droplet but high roughness for that high wettability difference causes obstruction of droplet moving). Thus the droplet on the water film could not be hindered to line direction but restricted to orthogonal direction, effectively. In addition, droplet behaviors according to droplet volume and line thickness were studied. Droplet fell off the line with narrowing the interface between the droplet and the water film on the line. When the droplet fell off the line, the plate angle was designated as a critical plate angle and it used as an indicator of surface capability to control the droplet. As a result critical plate angle increases as droplet volume decreases and line thickness increases.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.2509-2512
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• 2005

In this paper, a position control scheme of the ink droplet is presented for the high image quality and print speed inkjet printer. The proposed scheme estimates the impact position and compensates it by control of the fire strobe time based on the dynamic equations describing the moving trajectory of the ink droplet. Compared to the conventional fire strobe control which is based on the simple synchronization the fire strobe with the position signal of the inkjet nozzle, the proposed control scheme provides more accurate impact position control during the carrier is moving with accelerated or decelerated speed as well as constant speed. The availability of printing during the acceleration and deceleration states of the carrier moving enables the print speed up and the frame size down which means the cost down.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.46-50
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• 2020

On-demand droplet generation with tunable droplet volume is fundamental in many droplet microfluidic applications. In this work, we propose an acoustofluidic method to produce water-in-oil droplets with prescribed volume in an on-demand manner. Surface acoustic waves produced from a slanted interdigital transducer are coupled with parallel laminar streams of dispersed and continuous phase fluids. Acoustic radiation force acting on the fluid interface enable generation of droplets in a microfluidic chip. We expect that the proposed acoustofluidic droplet generation method will serve as a promising tool for on-demand droplet generation with on-chip droplet volume control.

• Journal of Institute of Convergence Technology
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.34-40
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• 2011

In this paper, a hybrid design tool combining one-dimensional(1D) lumped model and three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics(CFD) approach has been developed in order to evaluate the performance of inkjet print head and droplet control process are studied to reduce the deviations between nozzles which affect the size of the printed line for the industrial application of direct writing on printed circuit boards(PCB). 1D lumped model analysis shows that it is useful tool for evaluating performance of an inkjet head by varying the design parameters. The differences in ejected volume and droplet velocity between analytical and experimental result are within 12%. Time sequence of droplet generation is verified by the comparison between 3D analysis result and photographic images acquired by stroboscopic technique. In addition, by applying DPN process, velocity and volume uniformity between nozzles is dramatically improved that the tolerance achieved by the piezoelectric inkjet printhead across the 64 nozzles is 5 to 8%. A printed line pattern is successfully obtained using the fabricated inkjet print head and droplet calibration system.

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.126-131
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• 2013

This paper describes the effect of ultrasonic frequency(f) on the atomization and deformation characteristics of single water droplet in an acoustic levitation field. To achieve this, the ultrasonic levitator that can control sound pressure and velocity amplitude by changing frequency was installed, and visualization of single water droplet was conducted with high resolution ICCD and CCD camera. At the same time, atomization and deformation characteristics of single water droplet was studied in terms of normalized droplet diameter($d/d_0$), droplet diameter(d) variation and droplet volume(V) variation under different ultrasonic frequency(f) conditions. It was revealed that increase of ultrasonic frequency reduces the droplet diameter. Therefore, it is able to levitate with low sound pressure level. It also induces the wide oscillation range, large diameter and volume variation of water droplet. In conclusion, the increase of ultrasonic frequency(f) can enhance the atomization performance of single water droplet.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.48 no.5
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• pp.545-555
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• 2010

Recently, droplet-based microfluidic systems are widely used in various areas ranging from fundamental science including chemistry, biology, and physics to material science and engineering. This article reviews recent development in the droplet based microfluidic system from basic fabrication of tiny device, principle of droplet formation, merging, mixing, control of droplets, and application for the synthesis of novel functional materials. We discuss strong advantages of the droplet based microfluidics in point of control of particle size, morphologies, shapes, and structures.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.402-407
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• 2011

The current paper describes a simpler ground-type, single-plate electrowetting configuration for droplet transport in digital microfluidics without performance degradation. The simplified fabrication process is achieved with two photolithography steps. The first step simultaneously patterns both a control electrode array and a reference electrode on a substrate. The second step patterns a dielectric layer at the top to expose the reference electrode for grounding the liquid droplet. In the experiment, a $5{\mu}m$ thick photo-imageable polyimide, with a 3.3 dielectric constant, is used as the dielectric layer. A 10 nm Teflon-AF is coated to obtain a hydrophobic surface with a high water advancing angle of $116^{\circ}$ and a small contact angle hysteresis of $5^{\circ}$. The droplet movement of 1 mM methylene blue on this simplified device is successfully demonstrated at control voltages above the required 45 V to overcome the contact angle hysteresis.

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.98-104
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• 2006

A charged droplet scrubber was introduced to remove visible smokes generated in many industrial facilities. Lab-scale and field tests were conducted in this study. The system consists of a corona discharger to effectively charge the fine particles, fellowed by an electrostatic chamber to promote coagulation between charged fine particles and oppositely charged droplets and a demister to remove resultant particles. Overall collection efficiency, 98.4% was obtained from a lab-scale test, when a high voltage was applied to an ionizer and a charged droplet scrubber. Field tests also show the high collection efficiencies, 93.5% with one stage and 99.4% with two stage system. This system can be used to increase the collection efficiency of the conventional air pollution control devices to satisfy the national emission standard.