A Separation Criterion with Experimental Validation for Shear-Driven Films in Separated Flows

Abstract

The behavior of a shear-driven thin liquid film at a sharp expanding corner is of interest in many engineering applications. However, details of the interaction between inertial, surface tension, and gravitational forces at the corner that result in partial or complete separation of the film from the surface are not clear. A criterion is proposed to predict the onset of shear-driven film separation from the surface at an expanding corner. The criterion is validated with experimental measurements of the percent of film mass separated as well as comparisons to other observations from the literature. The results show that the proposed force ratio correlates well to the onset of film separation over a wide range of experimental test conditions. The correlation suggests that the gas phase impacts the separation process only through its effect on the liquid film momentum.

Department(s)

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Sponsor(s)

National Science Foundation (U.S.)

Keywords and Phrases

Film Flow; Flow Separation; Liquid films; Shear flow; Surface tension

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0098-2202

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2008 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 May 2008

Link to Full Text

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