BEST PRACTICES

K N O W L E D G E R E S O U R C E S

Best Practices for Modeling Thin Liquid Film Coating Flows in

FLUENT
Note: This document provides best practice guidelines that highlight various methods that can be used within ANSYS products. These guidelines are
meant to be used in conjunction with the information provided in the ANSYS, Inc. product documentation. For the latest version, please visit the
ANSYS Customer Portal.

Introduction
Fluent VOF model can be applied to simulate the flows in thin liquid film coating process.
One example is the flow in a slot coater, which consists of a slot die attached very close
to a rotating roller substrate (or web). The slot die feeds the liquid into the gap between
the die tip faces (lip) and the substrate. The liquid is then picked up by the moving
substrate and forms a thin film on the substrate.
The guidelines in this document will be generally applicable to the similar thin film flow
simulation in coating applications, such as roller coating, wire coating, dip coating, etc.

Key Applications/Physics
Physics:
Free surface between different fluids, such as air and water or polymer
Surface tension force along free surface
Wall adhesion, contact angle between solid wall and the tangent to the air-liquid
interface at the wall will be formed when liquid droplet contacts on a solid wall surface

Applications
Slot coater

Fig. 1 Liquid volume fraction in a slot coater

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 Fig. 2 Velocity field in a slot coater

Model Comparison
Only VOF model is recommended

Geometry Recommendations
Since the thickness of the film could be of order of microns, modeling the flow as 2D or
2D axis-symmetric may be an efficient modeling choice.
Domain range needs to be wide enough to eliminate the boundary effect to the thin film
flow to the lowest, also long enough on the downstream side to let the liquid film to
develop to uniform thickness

Meshing Recommendations
Fine mesh to resolve the thin film, 4 or more cells across the film thickness
Relatively high aspect ratio inside the cells within the thin film is allowed on plane
surface or flat surface with small curvature
Low cell aspect ratio in the thin film layer is required for solving the thin film flow on high
curvature surface
Mesh size needs to be fine enough to resolve any small scale features, such as air
bubbles which may be entrained into liquid film, or liquid droplets which may be splashed
into air
In normal situation, the small bubbles and the droplets are not expected, so the
excessively fine mesh is not required for efficient run, especially for the runs in the initial
studies.

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 Fig. 3 Mesh with the thin liquid film

Solver Setup and Initial/Boundary Conditions

Since the small scale of the thin liquid film and the slow velocity of the moving substrate,
the flow is usually laminar without many air bubbles entrained and the droplets splashed.
A clean and smooth free surface exists between air and liquid fluids. VOF model is the
appropriate model to be applied.
Initial patch of the liquid volume fraction is usually required for faster establishing the
flow field. Combination of the region and boundary based volume registers can be used
for patching the initial liquid volume fraction. Please see the example in Fig. 3. Velocity is
initialized as zero in the field.

Fig. 4 Initial patch of liquid volume fraction

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 In thin film flow simulation, surface tension force and wall adhesion may play important
role in forming flow pattern. When Reynolds number is small Re<<1, the importance of
the surface tension effect is determined by the dimensionless number, Capillary number
Ca
U
Ca (1)

And when Re>>1, the importance of the surface tension effect is determined by the
Weber number We,
LU 2
We (2)

Where U and L are the characteristic velocity and length scale, µ is the liquid viscosity, ρ
is liquid density and σ is surface tension coefficient. Surface tension coefficient can be
neglected if Ca>>1 and We>>1.
Surface tension coefficient value needs to be given after activating it on
Define/Phases/Interaction panel.
Contact angle value needs to be specified after activating wall adhesion on the same
Define/Phases/Interaction panel. Since different solid materials may be used on
substrate and slot lips, the different values of contact angle may need to be given on
different walls. It is recommended to make separate zone names, so that different
contact angle values can be specified on different wall surfaces. The contact angle is the
angle between the wall and the tangent to the interface at the wall, measured inside the
phase listed in the left column under Wall Adhesion in the Momentum tab of the Wall
panel. For details, please refer to the user’s guide:
http://www.fluentusers.com/fluent/doc/ori/html/ug/node888.htm
To start the simulation, transient VOF solver is recommended for a numerically stable
simulation without divergence. Explicit temporary scheme is better to be used in
resolving thin film flow. Recommendations of schemes for other equations are listed
below:
 PRESTO! Scheme for pressure equation
 Geo-Reconstruction scheme for the volume fraction
 2nd-order upwind scheme for momentum and other equations
 PISO for Pressure- Velocity coupling
Under-relaxation factors:
 Pressure, 0.8
 Momentum, 0.8
 Density and Body force, 1.0 (default value)
Time step size:
 Small time step size may be required for the initial run of the simulation
 Global Courant number for time accurate and numerically stable calculation
needs to be taken in the range of 0.5-1.0. In the initial run, it is wise to choose

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 smaller Global Courant number, could be as small as 0.05-0.1, and gradually
increase it to larger value.

Postprocessing
Display contours on volume fraction of liquid
Use Execute on Demand panel to implement save image files (.tif recommended)

Checklist
Mesh generation in Gambit and export mesh
Read .msh into Fluent and scale the mesh properly
Prepare fluid material properties on fluids, such as air and water or polymer
Define VOF model in Define/Models/Multiphase panel, and keep the default Explicit
under Scheme and the default value 0.25 under Courant number
Define phases on Define/Phases panel, usually choose air as primary phase and liquid
as the secondary phase
Define surface tension coefficient on Define/Phases/Interaction panel
Activate wall adhesion on Define/Phases/Interaction panel and specify contact angle on
each Wall boundary condition panel
Choose PRESTO For pressure equation
Geo-Reconstruct scheme for the volume fraction
2nd-order upwind scheme for momentum and other equations
PISO for Pressure- Velocity coupling
Time step size

Troubleshooting
Smaller time step size may be required for starting the simulation
Implicit scheme with Modified HRIC scheme for volume fraction equation may be helpful
for the initial simulation with larger time step size, though it is not recommended for
accurate solution on the thin film flow. Therefore applying explicit scheme in the later
stage is required.

Additional Information-Reference to the Documentation

Fluent 6.3 User’s Guide, Chapter 23 Modeling Multiphase Flows, Section 3 Volume of
Fluid Model Theory, http://www.fluentusers.com/fluent/doc/ori/html/ug/node880.htm

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