Nonlinear Evolution of the Travelling Waves in Roll Coating Flows of Thin Viscoelastic Polymer Falling Films

Abstract

Roll coating is widely used to apply a thin liquid film to a continuous, flexible substrate. It is known that macroscopic instabilities of the film system can result in a non-homogenous film growth to fluid flow. The influence of the Rossby number, the viscoelastic parameter, and the roller radius on the nonlinear hydrodynamic stability of a thin viscoelastic polymer fluid film coating flow down a rotating vertical roller is investigated. In contrast to most previous studies, the solution scheme employed in this study is based on a numerical approximation approach rather than an analytical method. The size of the explosive supercritical instability region increases significantly as the roller rotates. It is shown that the stability of the liquid film is enhanced by reducing the viscoelastic effect or decreasing the speed of the rotating roller. At higher values of the Reynolds number, the tendency of the rotation effect to prompt thin-film instability increases with an increasing roller radius.