Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 April 2006
This paper is concerned with understanding the development of a free surface and the velocity of a thick creeping film emerging from a slit onto a plate. There is a difference between free surface flows with film thickness of 10 to 20 mm and thin film flows of less than 1 to 2 mm due to surface tension influence.
A laser–Doppler velocimeter of high spatial and temporal resolution has been used to measure the decreasing thickness of slowly flowing liquid and the velocity profiles at the exit of the slit and in the transition region of the plate. The hydrodynamic entrance length can be calculated from an empirical dimensionless relation that includes only the plate inclination angle β as a parameter.