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Jet Instability And Droplet Formation For Bio-Printing Applications, Leigh Herran

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The research conducted in this dissertation was done to obtain a fundamental understanding of the formation of droplets in a drop-on-demand (DOD) inkjetting setup when the ink contains a polymer additive. The objective is to precisely control and even predict the forming dynamics and final droplet characteristics (velocity, size and satellite elimination). A polymeric fluid called sodium alginate has been gaining attention due to its highly bio-compatible nature. Solutions of sodium alginate were used as the ink material and in some cases compared with an equivalent Newtonian fluid (same zero-shear viscosity). The droplets were inspected in one of two ways: …