Beaumont, Julien

Gaillard, Antoine

Lebon, Luc

Lhuissier, Henri

Limat, Laurent

English

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Viscoelastic liquid curtains
Antoine Gaillard, Luc Lebon, Henri Lhuissier, Laurent Limat, Julien
Beaumont
To cite this version:
Antoine Gaillard, Luc Lebon, Henri Lhuissier, Laurent Limat, Julien Beaumont. Viscoelastic liquid
curtains. 11th European Coating Symposium 2015, Sep 2015, Eindhoven, Netherlands. pp.160-163.
￿hal-02343801￿
Viscoelastic liquid curtains 
Antoine Gaillard1, Luc Lebon1, Henri Lhuissier3, Laurent Limat1 and Julien Beaumont2 
1 Matière et Systèmes Complexes (MSC), Université Paris Diderot & CNRS, UMR7057, 
Bâtiment Condorcet, 10 rue Alice Domon et Léonie Duquet, F-75013 Paris, France. 
2 Saint-Gobain Recherche, 39 Quai Lucien Lefranc, F-93300 Aubervilliers, France.  
3 Institut Universitaire des Systèmes Thermiques Industriels (IUSTI), Aix-Marseille Université & CNRS, UMR 7343, 
Technopôle de Château-Gombert, 5 rue E. Fermi, 13453 Marseille, France. 
Corresponding author: ldlimat@gmail.com 
Keywords: curtain coating, visco-elasticity, complex fluids, stability. 
1. Introduction : 
Curtain coating has been intensively investigated on geometries and situations of increasing complexity 
(multilayer coating, inclined weirs, etc) [1]. We consider here the case of a viscoelastic liquid and focus on 
the simplest configuration, also investigated by Brown [2] and Aidun [3], of a vertical liquid curtain falling 
from a long thin slot and guided between two wires. To our knowledge, few works have investigated the in-
cidence of viscoelasticity on curtain coating [4], and even elementary questions such as the flow structure 
and its stability remain unexplored. This situation is particularly surprising since the development of innova-
tive processes, under the constraint of new environmental rules, frequently involves polymer solutions with 
unusual rheological behaviours. With the aim of filling this gap, we realized experiments with aqueous solu-
tions of long chain polymers extruded across a long horizontal thin slot and investigated the flow structure 
and stability of the curtain downstream. 
2. Experimental situation : 
In our experiment, a long thin slot (length 14 cm, thickness a = 1 mm) is drilled at the bottom of a horizontal 
hollow cylinder, which is kept filled with liquid and fed at constant flow rate by its two extremities. The liq-
uid is extruded across the slot and then falls vertically under gravity, thus forming the curtain. Two vertical 
wires are placed on each side of the curtain to avoid lateral shrinking due to surface tension. We used aque-
ous solutions of polymer with concentrations C in the range 0.1 - 1.0 g/L. Shear rheology of such solutions 
was measured with a cone-and-plate rheometer, revealing a shear-thinning and viscoelastic behaviour, along 
with the development of a non-zero first normal stress difference N1. The polymer concentration C and the 
linear flow rate Γ (volume of liquid crossing the slot per unit time per unit slot length) are the key parameters 
of the experiment. 
3.  Flow structure : 
The bi-dimensional velocity field in the curtain was measured with Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), using 
50 μm polyamide seeding particles and a high-speed camera. Surprisingly, and contrary to Newtonian liq-
uids, the flow does not reduce to a free fall, even far downstream from the slot. We choose the vertical z-axis 
to point downstream, z = 0 corresponding to the slot exit. Typical vertical velocity profiles in the z-direction 
are shown in Fig. 1-a for varied polymer concentrations. After a transition length z*, we observe that the 
square U2 of the vertical velocity varies linearly with the distance z from the slot, i.e., for z > z*: 
     U2 (z) = U02 + 2g* (z - z*)       (1) 
The parabolic shape of U(z) is preserved, but the acceleration g* of the flow is actually reduced with respect 
to free fall. A viscoelastic curtain thus differs from a Newtonian curtain (with kinematic viscosity ν) which 
would relax to a free fall (with an acceleration g = 9.81 m.s-2) at long distance z > (ν2/g) 1/3 [2]. Here the pres-
ence of polymer slows down the liquid fall not only until z*, but all over the curtain. As shown in Fig. 1-b, 
this effective acceleration g* decreases with increasing polymer concentration C and decreasing flow rate Γ. 
The latter dependence suggests that the liquid keeps a memory of its shear deformation when passing 
through the slot. Moreover, the initial flow velocity U0 (at z = 0) is found to decrease with C for a constant Γ 
and to be less than the expected Γ/a value corresponding to the mean velocity in the slot. This can be ex-
plained by a swelling of the curtain at the slot exit (see e.g. Tanner [5]). Indeed, the calculated values of the 
Weissenberg number, defined as the ratio Wi = N1/σ between the first normal stress difference and the shear 
stress exerted on the slot wall, are larger than one and range between 10 and 50 in our experiment.  
 
  
 
For large polymer concentrations, we also observed a spontaneous horizontal modulation of the flow. Indeed, 
PIV images show a modulation in particle repartition along the x-direction, thus suggesting a modulation of 
the curtain thickness leading to a succession of thick and thin vertical bands (Fig. 2 top). Velocity fields on 
the curtain reveal that this modulation in thickness is accompanied by a modulation in flow velocity: thick 
bands fall faster than thin ones (Fig. 2 bottom). The characteristic wavelength λ of this spatial modulation is 
centimetric and seems to be fairly independent of the polymer concentration as well as of the flow rate (alt-
hough the modulation amplitude depends on both values).  
 
 
 
Fig. 1: (a): Vertical velocity profiles U2 versus z for a given linear flow rate  and different polymer concentrations C.  
The acceleration g* of the flow at long distance decreases with increasing C (for pure water, a free fall with accelera-
tion g is recovered). (b): Ratio g*/g versus for different polymer concentrations C. For large C, g* increases with  
 
 
 
Fig. 2:  PIV images (top) and velocity fields (bottom) of a curtain with low (a) and large (b) polymer concentration C. 
(top): Polyamide seeding particles appear as black dots. At large C (b), a horizontal modulation of the flow with wave-
length λ appears. The thickness modulation is revealed by a non-homogeneous particles repartition (thin bands are 
poor in particles). Vertical velocity profiles U versus x for different altitudes z reveal the horizontal modulation in flow 
velocity. Correspondence between top and bottom shows that a concentrated curtain organizes in a succession of thick - 
fast vertical bands and thin - slow ones. (bottom): Averaging over x gives the mean U(z) values plotted in figure 1.  
4.  Curtain stability : 
The stability of a curtain is usually discussed in terms of a comparison between the liquid falling velocity U 
and the Taylor-Culick velocity VC = (2h) 1/2 at which a hole opens in the frame of reference of the moving 
liquid [2,6], where and are the liquid surface tension and density and h = Γ/U is the local curtain thick-
ness (without modulation) which decreases with z as U increases in order to respect flow rate conservation. 
Since, in the absence of modulation, U/VC = ΓU/2) 1/2 increases with increasing z, curtain stability is to be 
considered as a function of space. If a hole forms at an altitude zpop where U > VC, it will then be advected by 
the flow (Fig. 3-a). On the contrary, if U < VC, the upper edge of the hole will propagate upward and finally 
reach the slot, thus irreversibly breaking the curtain. This defines a critical altitude zC below which the cur-
tain is stable (z > zC  U > VC  Weber number We = (U/VC) 2  > 1).  
However, as shown in Fig. 3, holes (formed spontaneously by bubble bursting) formed at altitudes zpop > zC 
are able to propagate upward (b and c) and eventually reach the unstable zone z < zC (b). This is in fact due to 
thickness and velocity modulation in the curtain. Indeed, bubbles (b and c) burst in thin bands (h small and U 
small) where VC is increased and U is deceased, thus allowing VC > U locally. As bubbles (inevitably formed 
during liquid circulation in the set-up) are more likely to burst in thin bands, the viscoelastic thickness modu-
lation instability (observed for large polymer concentrations) destabilizes the curtain by allowing holes 
formed away from the slot to cause irreversible rupture.  
On the other hand, for low polymer concentrations (negligible modulation), we measured that adding poly-
mer strongly decreases the mean frequency fpop of bubble bursting events in the curtain, as shown in Fig. 4-a. 
The frequency typically decreases from ten holes formed per second for pure water to one hole per minute 
for a moderate concentration C = 0.5 g/L. This observation suggests that adding a moderate amount of poly-
mer stabilizes the curtain. Indeed, besides the fate of a hole that has already formed, the stability of a curtain 
crucially depends on the occurrence of hole formation. 
 
 
 
Fig. 3: Time sequences of hole opening in a low concentration (stable) curtain (a, >C) and a large concentration 
(unstable) one (b and c, < C  zC > 0). (a): The hole is evacuated by the flow. (b and c): A bubble bursts in a thin 
band in which the local Taylor-Culick speed VC is larger than the local flow velocity U. The upper edge of the hole thus 
propagates upward and eventually (b) reaches the unstable zone z < zC, thus irreversibly breaking the curtain. 
  
 In parallel, we measured the mean time Tlife during which a curtain can remain entire before a hole reaches 
the slot (eventually using a thin band path) (Fig. 3-b). Other hole opening events (Fig. 3-a and c) are not tak-
en into account so that Tlife is not 1/fpop and represents the curtain lifespan. Our measurements (Fig. 4-b) show 
that Tlife increases with Γ and diverges at a certain critical flow rate ΓC that depends on the polymer concen-
tration. Besides, for a given Γ, Tlife decreases with increasing C, which manifests the increasing influence of 
thickness modulation on stability. ΓC is the critical linear flow rate above which no rupture event is possible, 
all holes being evacuated by the flow. For a Newtonian liquid, and assuming no swelling, one would expect 
ΓC = (2a/) 1/2, which corresponds to U0 = VC. Our measurements (Fig. 4-b) however show that ΓC actually 
increases with increasing polymer concentration, which reveals an other destabilizing effect of the addition 
of polymers. 
 
5.  Conclusion : 
We have investigated the flow and stability of a viscoelastic liquid curtain falling vertically from a thin slot. 
We have shown that both aspects are strongly modified compared to the standard behaviour of Newtonian 
liquids: the base flow, i.e. the velocity at which the liquid falls, is modified, and a specific instability is ob-
served at the slot exit, which modulates the curtain thickness and velocity and influences the curtain stability. 
We believe that these effects result from the strong shear imposed to the liquid when flowing across the slot, 
the elastic stresses developed in the liquid being unable to completely relax in the sudden die-slot expansion 
[5]. This situation is reminiscent of a recent study by Lhuissier et al [7] on viscoelastic jet impact, in which 
unrelaxed stresses develop a faceting instability on impact. We are still investigating these unusual effects 
and are trying to develop models based on available theories of viscoelastic flows.  
 
References 
 
1. K. Miyamoto and Y. Katagiri , “Curtain Coating” in "Liquid Film Coating", ed. by Kistler and Schweizer, Chapman 
& Hall, London (1997) 
2.  D. R. Brown, "A study of the behaviour of a thin sheet of moving liquid", J. Fluid Mech., 10, 297-305 (1961). 
3.  C. K. Aidun, "Mechanics of a Free-Surface Liquid Film Flow", J. Appl. Mech., 54, 951 (1987) 
4.  M. Becerra and M. S. Carvalho, "Stability of viscoelastic liquid curtains", Chem. Eng. and Process., 50, 445–449 
(2011). 
5.  R. I. Tanner, "A Theory of Die-Swell", J. Polymer Sc., 8, 2067 (1970). 
6. G. I. Taylor, "The dynamics of thin sheets of fluid. III. Disintegration of fluid sheets", Proc. R. Soc. London, 253,  
296–312 (1959). 
7.  H. Lhuissier, B. Néel and L. Limat, "Viscoelasticity breaks the symmetry of impacting jets", Phys. Rev. Lett. 113 
194502 (2014). 
 
 
Fig. 4: (a): Frequency fpop of bubble bursting events in the curtain as a function of the linear flow rate  for different 
(moderate) polymer concentrations C. Adding polymer decreases fpop and thus stabilizes the curtain. (b): Curtain 
lifespan Tlife (mean time during which a curtain remains entire before an irreversible rupture event occurs, like in Fig. 
3-b). Tlife increases with and diverges at the critical flow rate C (above which Tlife is infinite). Directly measured val-
ues of C are represented by vertical doted lines for the corresponding polymer concentrations and seem to effectively 
match the singularity of experimental Tlife (curves. Lines are traced to guide the eye. 


Viscoelastic liquid curtains

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Viscoelastic liquid curtains

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