Development and Experimental Research of Aluminium Alloy Droplet Generator based on Mechanical Vibration

AbstractIn order to produce aluminium droplet stably, a novel droplet generator based on mechanical vibration was developed. The generator was made up of vibration exciter, vibration rod, graphite crucible, cooling channel and some other connect components. Droplet generating experiments were conducted to study the influence of parameters on droplet formation. The results indicated that single droplet could not be generated without mechanical vibration. By applying mechanical vibration, single droplets were generated while backpressure was between 34 and 40kPa. While single droplets were generated, the mean diameter was 828.4μm which was approximately 2.1 times of the nozzle diameter. The standard deviation was 33.8μm indicating that the droplets were uniform. As a result, the capability of the generator for generating aluminium droplet was validated