A Model for Coating Steel—Draining Under Gravity 7

Fig. 2 Computed solution 1.0

Side coating
from Tuck et al. (1983). The thickness
narrowest point is at the end,
the thickness at that point
being 63% of the maximum Coating surface
side coating thickness 0.5

Sheet
0.0

−0.5 0.0

coating is around 63% of the thickness along the side, thus making it more vulnerable
to gaps in the coating if there are inconsistencies in the jet-stripping process.
A perturbation method to compute solutions to the draining problem is now
described, where the coating thickness for small deviations from a flat sheet
can be
√ calculated. Non-dimensionalizing with respect to velocity, U , and length,
L = U ν/g, the problem becomes

∂2u ∂2u
+ =1 (9)
∂ y2 ∂z 2
subject to u = 1, on y = z S , (10)
∂u
= 0, u = 1/2 on y = z F , (11)
∂n
where z F is the as-yet unknown function of the coating shape and z S is the equation
of the surface of the substrate
z S = ε f S (y), (12)

where ε is some small parameter that measures the height of the deviation relative
to the thickness of the coating. Note that in this non-dimensional coordinate system
the coating thickness for a perfectly flat sheet has unit value.
Now we seek a solution using perturbation techniques, by looking for a solution
as an expansion in powers of ε, that is

u = u 0 + εu 1 + εu 2 + · · · (13)
z F = 1 + ε f 1 (y) + ε f 2 (y) + · · · , (14)

where f j (y), j = 1, 2, . . . are successive approximations to the coating surface. Now

since the small parameter appears implicitly in the functions we can follow (Van Dyke
1975) and expand u about both z = 0 and z = 1, so on the substrate surface