Coanda effect jet around a cylinder with an interacting adjacent surface.

The effects of placing a plane solid surface in close proximity to a Coanda effect jet turning over a cylindrical surface are investigated to help judge the possible application of this type of jet to manufacturing line processes. The Coanda jet is proposed as a coating control mechanism for fluidic coatings on sheets or a particulate removal device. A Coanda jet placed close to a surface will develop a strong tangential flow that will shear by viscous effects and pressure gradients. A turbulent k-{dollar}\\varepsilon{dollar} finite element model, developed in FIDAP, is presented that studies the effects of cylinder-sheet separation distance and jet-to-gap angular placement of the jet. It is assumed that the operation is isothermal and that the sheet speed is negligible compared to the air jet speed. Unconstrained models and cases with a distant surface were run and compared to published experimental results for an unconstrained Coanda jet to validate the modeling method and optimize the empirical constants in the k-{dollar}\\varepsilon{dollar} equations. Best agreement was found if the C{dollar}\\sb2{dollar} parameter in the equations is increased from 1.92 to 3.0. Maximum shear stress and pressure gradient values increased exponentially for a decreasing gap size and physical geometric constraints will be the limiting factor to efficiency. For similar initial jets this study shows that the Coanda jet develops stripping forces about 1/2 as great as the regular air-knife, but has advantages such as directed flow. The Coanda jet is seen as a viable option to air-knives for certain operations