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| Url | https://cimne.com/sgp/rtd/Project.aspx?id=988 | ||
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| Acronym | DECIMA | ||
| Project title | DEsign-supporting Computational framework for modelIng Coupled Mircorfluidics in Advanced manufacturing. | ||
| Reference | PID2022-137472OB-I00 | ||
| Principal investigator |
Pavel RYZHAKOV - pryzhakov@cimne.upc.edu
Riccardo ROSSI BERNECOLI - rrossi@cimne.upc.edu |
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| Start date | 01/09/2023 | End date | 31/08/2026 |
| Coordinator | CIMNE | ||
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| Program | P.E. para Impulsar la Investigación Científico-Técnica y su Transferencia | Call | Proyectos Generación de Conocimiento 2022 |
| Subprogram | Subprograma Estatal de Generación de Conocimiento | Category | Nacional |
| Funding body(ies) | MICINN | Grant | $146,250.00 |
| Abstract | Microfluidic-based digital manufacturing plays an important role in the miniaturization of multiple products ranging from electronic devices to biological and pharmaceutical applications. Such products are currently manufactured via microfluidic ejection, particularly via drop-on-demand printing, techniques that are appealing whenever the application requires depositing a thin layer of material strictly following a predefined pattern. The rapid growth of the corresponding markets justifies the importance of the microfluidics-based manufacturing processes and it turn the importance of developing reliable methods and tools for the predictive analysis of such processes. The main challenge in optimizing existing applications consists in finding a way to achieve maximum printing precision while at the same time minimizing the expenditure of printing material (“ink”). Furthermore, broadening the application fields requires developing new “engineered” inks to comply with the desired functionalities. Moreover, on many occasions re-designing the manufacturing set-up is necessary: production of microdroplets and or jets of a given size and shape may require altering the nozzle shapes and materials, as well as operation conditions of the printheads. In practical terms, the question is: given the desired properties of the final product, how should the “ink” and manufacturing set-up be adjusted to get the best quality at highest speed and lowest coast. Corresponding experimental studies have major shortcomings; deliberate control over material properties is hardly possible: one cannot easily alter one material property in an isolated way without affecting others. Additionally, high cost of altering any component of the standard printing devices limits the range of alternatives to be analyzed. DECIMA project aims at filling this gap by developing a means for virtual analysis of the microfluidic-based processes allowing for varying and testing the impact of multiple printing parameters. This will facilitate process design improvements by providing insights into the relationship among the ink and nozzle properties, the droplet generation mechanism and the final product. In particular, the DECIMA tool will provide virtual experiments varying the pressure pulse of the printing head and nozzle configuration to ensure desired characteristics of the produced inkjet (e.g. suppressing undesirable jet tails and satellite droplets), thus maximizing the precision and reducing the ink expenditure. Moreover, we will investigate theoretically if applying electric field can be used in order to produce finer microdroplets, substituting conventional mechanical droplet creation. In case of success, this will define a novel promising manufacturing technique inheriting features of inkjet printing and electrohydrodynamic atomization. DECIMA will involve developing an Open Source enhanced numerical model for two-phase flow equipped with sophisticated approach for liquid-solid contact representation and an electrohydrodynamic coupling. The model will be extended by a machine learning-based module in order to provide the basis for nearly real-time prediction of the droplet modes. Overall, DECIMA model aims at assisting industrial specialists and engineers in the development of complex application-specific set-ups and defining optimal operating regimes of the printing device. | ||
| Proyecto PID2022-137472OB-I00 financiado por MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ FEDER, UE | |||