Aerosol jet printing (AJP) is a non-contact additive manufacturing technique that has great potential in the fields of electronics, microelectronics, new energy and micro and nano manufacturing. However, there are also some problems in the application of this technique, such as unstable deposition structure and poor repeatability. Analyzing the complex phenomena of gas-liquid interaction in the aerosol jet printing (AJP) process is critical to improve the quality and production rate of printing devices. In this work a multiphase discrete phase model (DPM) based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is proposed to simulate the physical behaviors in the AJP process. The model takes into account the gas and liquid flow, species transport, and deposition of the aerosol droplets. There is good agreement for the simulation results and the experimental measurements in the literature, which validate the predicted print structures and the flow properties of the droplets, explain the typical transport phenomena in the AJP process, and contribute to a more in-depth understanding of the mechanisms of aerosol droplet transport and deposition. The results show that the initial particle size of aerosol droplets has an important influence on the droplet transport and the printing products obtained by final deposition during the AJP process. The model provides an in-depth understanding of the mechanism of droplets interaction and deposition, which plays an important role in process optimization and control of product properties. 

Aerosol jet printing, Computational fluid dynamics, Discrete phase modeling, Turbulence modeling, Process modeling