Comparison and Evaluation of Various Material Jetting Technologies in Terms of Additive Manufacturing

Abstract

Material Jetting (MJ) is an emerging technique categorised as a part of Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology. This technique is based on manufacturing a part by depositing base material in the form of tiny droplets over a substrate point by point, then layer upon layer in a controlled manner. Various base materials such as polymers, metals and even biological types can be used depending on the operation to be accomplished. Although material jetting has been widely used in the fields of conventional inkjet printing and micro-dispensing for many decades, it has started to play an important role in the additive manufacturing industry since late 90’s. Material jetting is getting more and more popular day by day due to the advantages provided. Such advantages like high deposition rates at high resolutions without sacrificing the final density and the strength cannot be achieved simultaneously in other additive manufacturing techniques. Practically, material jetting has the same operational principles as the 2D ink-jet process. It can also be categorized according to the liquid injection mechanism based on mechanical impact, thermal, pneumatic or electromagnetic effects. These mechanisms are mostly responsible from the droplet formation which is strongly related to the process time and final part quality.  "It is necessary to precisely control the material jetting systems. For this, it is necessary to overcome the image processing, inspection and expensive equipment cost problems. It is only then additive manufacturing technology can be carried a step further.