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Yes / A classification of coating flows is presented to facilitate a fundamental approach to their study. Four categories are observed: free, metered, transfer and gravure coating flows. They are all limited by free surface(s) which make their analysis difficult. Various analytical approaches have been used and these are briefly reviewed in this paper.

Yes / This study assesses experimentally the role of gas viscosity in controlling the minimum film thickness in slot coating in both the slot over roll and tensioned web modes. The minimum film thickness here is defined with respect to the onset of air entrainment rather than rivulets, the reason being that rivulets are an extreme form of instabilities occurring at much higher speeds. The gas viscosity effects are simulated experimentally by encasing the coaters in a sealed gas chamber in which various gases can be admitted. An appropriate choice of two gases was used to compare performances: air at atmospheric pressure and helium at sub-ambient pressure (25mbar), which we establish has a significantly lower “thin film” viscosity than atmospheric air. A capacitance sensor was used to continuously measure the film thickness on the web, which was ramped up in speed at a fixed acceleration whilst visualizations of the film stability were recorded through a viewing port in the chamber. The data collected show clearly that by coating in rarefied helium rather that atmospheric air we can reduce the minimum film thickness or air/gas entrainment low-flow limit. We attribute this widening of the stable coating window to the enhancement of dynamic wetting that results when the thin film gas viscosity is reduced. These results have evident practical significance for slot coating, the coating method of choice in many new technological applications, but it is their fundamental merit which is new and one that should be followed with further data and theoretical underpinning.

No / This study assesses experimentally the role of gas dissolution in gas entrainment which hitherto has been speculated on but not measured. In this paper, we used dip coating as the model experimental flow and performed the experiments with a dip coater encased in a vacuum chamber in which we admitted various gases. An appropriate choice of gases (air, carbon dioxide and helium) coupled with low pressure conditions from atmospheric down to 75 mbar enables us to test whether gas solubility is a key determinant in gas entrainment. The data presented here track the evolution in time of the size of bubbles of gas entrained in the liquid (silicone oil) which we observed to always occur at a critical speed, immediately after the dynamic wetting line breaks from a straight line into a serrated line with tiny vees the downstream apices of which are the locations from which the bubbles stream out. The results suggest that permeability combining solubility and diffusivity as a single parameter dictates the rate of dissolution when at atmospheric pressure. Helium, despite its comparatively sluggish rate of dissolution/growth into silicone oil was observed to have a more enhanced gas entrainment speed than air and carbon dioxide. Thus, the hypothetical contention from previous work (Miyamoto and Scriven, 1982) that gas can be entrained as a thin film which breaks into bubbles before dynamic wetting failure occurs is not realised, at least not in dip coating. The data presented here reinforce recent work by Benkreira and Ikin (2010) that thin film gas viscosity is the critical factor, over-riding dissolution during gas entrainment. This finding is fundamentally important and new and provides the experimental basis needed to develop and underpin new models for gas entrainment in coating flows.

No description available.

Yes / This study examines experimentally and for the first time the effect of reduced air pressure on dynamic wetting. The purpose is to assess the role of air viscosity on dynamic wetting failure which hitherto has been speculated on but not measured. In this paper we used dip coating as the model experimental flow and report data on air entrainment velocity Vae we measured with a series of silicone oils in a range of viscosities in a vacuum chamber where the pressure can be reduced from atmospheric down to a few mbar when the mean molecular free path of air is large and air ceases to have a viscosity. To complement earlier work, we carried out the experiments with a range of substrates of varying roughness. The substrates were chosen so that for each one, their two sides differ in roughness. This enables simultaneous comparative observation of their wetting performance and reduces the experimental error in assessing the role of roughness. The data presented here capture the effects of viscosity, roughness and air pressure but the important result of this study is that Vae can be increased considerably (exponentially) when the pressure is reduced with the suggestion that Vae approaches infinity as pressure approaches zero. In other words, the role of the surrounding air viscosity is important in dynamic wetting. The data from this study have significant implication to the fundamental understanding of dynamic wetting. Indeed they form the missing data link to fully understand this phenomenon. The data presented in this work also confirm the complex role of roughness, in that it can increase or decrease the air entrainment speed depending on the value on the viscosity of the coating solution. The results presented in this paper are very useful in practice as they imply that if one chooses carefully roughness one can coat viscous formulation at unexpectedly very high speeds with a moderate vacuum (50 mbar typically).

Yes / The coating flow examined here, labelled angled dip coating, is that where a substrate enters a pool of liquid forming an angle ß with the vertical so that it intersects the liquid along a wetting line which is not perpendicular to the direction of its motion. This flow situation is distinctly different from that where the substrate, inclined in the other dimension by the so-called angle of entry ¿, intersects the liquid surface perpendicularly to its motion. Experiments were carried out with various liquids to determine the effect of ß on the substrate velocity at which air is entrained into the liquid. It was observed that as this angle departs from zero, air entrainment is delayed to higher speeds. The data show that the speed which is relevant to air entrainment is not the velocity of the substrate itself but its component normal to the wetting line. This result has important practical implications and suggests that this fundamental principle is also applicable to other coating flows.

This thesis examines two important problems in fluid dynamics: that of a partially immersed sphere spinning in a bath of liquid and the measurement of flow velocities around a free flying butterfly. Although the actual problems are quite different, each problem incorporates many of the same principles and techniques. When a hard-boiled egg spins through a pool of milk on the kitchen counter, the milk rises up the sides of the egg and droplets are ejected. This phenomenon occurs when any partially submerged object whose radius increases upward from the fluid surface (e.g., spheres, inverted cones, rings, etc.), spins in a shallow bath of fluid. The fluid ejects from the surface at the maximum diameter in one of three ejection modes: jets, sheets, or sheet breakup. Additionally, a surprisingly large flow rate is induced by the spinning object. Spheres are used in this study to determine the effects of experimental parameters on the induced flow rate. High-speed imaging is used to experimentally characterize the modes of ejection and measure sheet breakup distance and velocities of liquid within liquid sheets. A theoretical model is derived using an integral momentum boundary layer analysis both beneath the free surface and in the thin film attached to the sphere. Experimental results are presented in comparison with predicted behavior with good agreement. The suitability of using a spinning sphere as a pump is also discussed. Second, the use of PIV to measure flow velocities around living species is becoming more widely adopted. Current efforts are starting to measure 3D, time-resolved velocities around insects in tethered flight. This work investigates the use of Synthetic Aperture PIV (SAPIV) in obtaining 3D, time-resolved volumetric velocity fields around a painted lady butterfly in free flight. Results are presented from several time steps during both the down stroke and upstroke of the butterfly showing the development of the leading edge vortex. The velocity field results have limited spatial resolution; however, the results show that SAPIV has potential in further investigating these flow structures. The reconstructed visual hull of the butterfly is also discussed.

No description available.