Liquid loss occurs at the receding contact line that forms when a substrate is withdrawn from a liquid. This behavior, often called film pulling, is fundamental to coating and cleaning processes, as well as other systems. There has been substantial prior work relative to understanding the static and dynamic behavior of the receding contact line and film pulling, but this work has focused primarily on operating conditions where the interfacial and viscous forces dominate. In the current work, experimental investigations are presented that identify a second regime, where inertial forces are dominant. These results are used to develop a semiempirical model for predicting the velocity at which an arbitrary liquid is deposited onto an arbitrary smooth substrate from the receding meniscus. The model is verified for a range of fluid properties and is accurate to within 20% mean average error.

Date Published: 1 April 2007
PDF: 8 pages
J. Micro/Nanolith. 6(2) 023003 doi: 10.1117/1.2727490
Published in: Journal of Micro/Nanolithography, MEMS, and MOEMS Volume 6, Issue 2