In all coating applications, a liquid film displaces air in contact with a dry solid substrate. At a low substrate speed a thin uniform wetting line is formed on the substrates surface, but at a high speed the wetting line becomes segmented and unsteady as air becomes entrained between the substrate and the liquid. These air bubbles affect the quality of the coated product and any means to postpone this at higher speeds without changing the specifications of the coating liquid is desirable. This research assesses the validity of a theoretically based concept developed by Blake and Rushack [1] and exploited by Cohu and Benkreira [2] for dip coating. The concept suggests that angling the wetting line by an angle ß would increase the speed at which air is entrained by a factor 1/cos ß. In practice, if achieved this is a significant increase that would result in more economical operation. This concept was tested in a fast coating operation that of curtain coating which is already enhanced by what is known as hydrodynamic assistance [2]. Here we are effectively checking an additional assistance to wetting. The work, performed on a purposed built curtain coater and a rotating die, with a range of fluids showed the concept to hold but provided the data are processed in a way that separate the effect of curtain impingement from the slanting of the wetting line.

Coating onto a moving substrate several films simultaneously on top of each other is a challenging exercise. This is due to the fact, depending on operating conditions (thickness and velocity of individual layers and the physical properties of the coating fluids), flow instabilities may arise at the interfaces between the layers and on the top layer. These instabilities ruin the application of the final multi-layered coating and must be avoided. This research addresses this coating flow situation and seeks to develop guidelines to avoid these instabilities. Following a critical literature survey, this thesis presents a novel experimental method that visualises multi-layered coating flow down an inclined multi-slot die. The visualisation is obtained using a unique configuration including a high-speed camera, telecentric objective lens and illumination. The results show for a single layer, as the die angle and Reynolds number increases, the flow becomes more unstable and for a dual layer flow, as Re increases the peak to peak amplitude and the frequency decreases at the free surface and interface. The latter was unexpected and does not conform with existing literature. The triple layer results show either a monotonically increasing or increasing from first to second layer viscosity stratifications are the most stable flows along with flow heights in the first and second layers of <22% and >18% of the total thickness respectively, which concur with current literature. The visualisation additionally obtained other instabilities including single layer back-wetting and vortices, and multilayer slot invasion with the findings concurring with current literature. / EPRSC/Tata Steel Industrial CASE Studentship; EP/J501840/1

In all coating applications, a liquid film displaces air in contact with a dry solid substrate. At a low substrate speed a thin uniform wetting line is formed on the substrates surface, but at a high speed the wetting line becomes segmented and unsteady as air becomes entrained between the substrate and the liquid. These air bubbles affect the quality of the coated product and any means to postpone this at higher speeds without changing the specifications of the coating liquid is desirable. This research assesses the validity of a theoretically based concept developed by Blake and Rushack [1] and exploited by Cohu and Benkreira [2] for dip coating. The concept suggests that angling the wetting line by an angle ß would increase the speed at which air is entrained by a factor 1/cos ß. In practice, if achieved this is a significant increase that would result in more economical operation. This concept was tested in a fast coating operation that of curtain coating which is already enhanced by what is known as hydrodynamic assistance [2]. Here we are effectively checking an additional assistance to wetting. The work, performed on a purposed built curtain coater and a rotating die, with a range of fluids showed the concept to hold but provided the data are processed in a way that separate the effect of curtain impingement from the slanting of the wetting line.

Le couchage rideau est un procédé d'enduction sans contact qui permet un couchage « contour » d'une feuille de papier dont le point clé est la stabilité du rideau. Ce procédé semble devoir se développer dans les années à venir pour la production de papiers impression-écriture et de papiers et cartons d'emballages. Néanmoins, il existe aujourd'hui un écart important entre la stabilité théorique du rideau et les observations. Nous avons donc analysé par CFD l'écoulement interne dans un dispositif de couchage pilote avec différents fluides Newtoniens et Non-Newtoniens ainsi que l'écoulement externe sur le plan incliné de l'appareil. L'étude de l'écoulement interne par CFD a permis de faire ressortir la cause de vortex pouvant apparaître dans le dispositif. Pour avoir un écoulement sans vortex, le nombre de Reynolds à l'entrée doit être inférieur à une valeur critique égale à 20 pour la géométrie étudiée quel que soit le fluide utilisé. De plus la présence d'une seconde cavité permet de filtrer les perturbations pour des fluides peu rhéofluidifiants, ce qui est le cas des sauces de couchages pour des papiers WFC. Ces résultats ont été validés expérimentalement à l'aide de traceurs et de PIV en utilisant une réplique exacte en Plexiglas de la coucheuse rideau. Enfin en ce qui concerne l'étude de l'écoulement externe sur le plan incliné, l'utilisation de la CFD a permis de conclure que, pour les dispositifs de couchage utilisés et les conditions opératoires de nos industries, certains problèmes présentés dans la littérature ne devraient pas exister. / Curtain coating is a contactless coating process which permits a contour coating of the paper and the key parameter of this process is a perfect stable curtain. This technology is expected to spread widely for graphic paper grades and boards in the next few years. Nevertheless, many experimental works revealed some differences between stability theory and results observed on the curtain. In this work, we performed CFD simulations both for Newtonian and Non-Newtonian fluids on the internal flow in a pilot curtain coater and on the flow down the inclined plane. The CFD study of the internal flow revealed the cause of vortex creation into the coater. To maintain vortex-free operation, the Reynolds number at the inlet must remain below a critical value whatever the fluid, which is equal to 20 with the studied geometry whatever the studied fluid. Moreover, a second cavity is useful since instabilities coming from the first cavity could be filtered for low shear-thinning fluids, which is the case of the WFC coating colours. These simulation results were validated thanks to flow visualization experiments with tracers and PIV using a transparent replica of the coater. Finally CFD simulations on the inclined plane were carried out and permitted to conclude that for the range of operating conditions used on the pilot curtain coater, some issues presented in literature should not exist industrially.

[pt] Filmes finos de líquido estão presentes em uma variedade de sistemas e aplicações. Estamos interessados em filmes compostos por duas camadas, que são comuns no processo de revestimento por cortina. No revestimento por cortina, o líquido cai de uma matriz formando uma cortina formada por um filme fino antes de molhar o substrato em movimento. Um dos limites mais importantes do processo é a ruptura da cortina, que define um limite inferior para a vazão do líquido de revestimento. Consequentemente, este limite inferior da vazão define a espessura mínima viável do filme depositado. Evidências experimentais mostraram que o uso de uma cortina compostas por duas camadas, com uma das camadas sendo mais fina e viscoelástica, pode atrasar a ruptura da cortina para taxas de fluxo mais baixas. A quebra de filmes líquidos de duas camadas, compostas por um líquido newtoniano e um viscoelástico, é estudado por meio da resolução das equações diferenciais que descrevem a evolução da configuração do filme até seu rompimento. O efeito de diferentes parâmetros no tempo de ruptura é determinado. Os resultados mostram o mesmo comportamento observado experimentalmente, a fina camada de líquido viscoelástico retarda o rompimento, estabilizando o filme líquido. / [en] Thin liquid sheets are present in a variety of systems and applications. Here, we are interested in double-layered sheets, which are common in the curtain coating process. In curtain coating, the liquid falls from a die forming a thin curtain before wetting the moving substrate. One of the most important process limits is the curtain breakup, which sets a lower limit for the coating liquid flow rate. Consequently, this flow rate lower limit defines the feasible minimum deposited film thickness. Experimental evidence have shown that using a two-layer curtain, with a viscoelastic thin layer, may delay the curtain breakup to lower flow ratios. The breakup of two-layer liquid sheets, composed of a Newtonian and a viscoelastic liquid, is studied by solving the differential equations that describe the evolution of the liquid sheet configuration until breakup. The effect of different parameters on the breakup time is determined. The results show the same behavior observed experimentally, thin viscoelastic liquid layer delays the breakup, stabilizing the liquid sheet.