A model of the unsteady response of a backward-facing compliant step
A large number of industrial surface coating and continuous casting operations require a fluid to flow from a reservoir, over a compliant step, onto a moving substrate. The contact line between the compliant step and substrate in such cases generally responds in an unsteady manner, depending on flow conditions, which can have an important influence on the surface quality of the final product. This work describes the development of a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model for predicting this unsteady response, with a particular emphasis on isolating the natural frequency of the contact line in a backward-facing step configuration. The compliant step was developed and implemented in the context of a pressure-based finite-element/finite-volume CFD solution, implicit in time, and considers in-surface forces based on a surface tension coefficient or an elastic membrane. Copyright (C) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
compliant step cfd natural frequency backward facing