MINIMUM WETTING RATE ON WETTED-WALL COLUMN

CORRELATION OVER WIDE RANGE OF LIQUID VISCOSITY

Abstract

Minimum wetting rates were obtained for glass and stainless steel tubes by using glycerolwater mixtures of various compositions. Results show that the wetting behavior of the liquid in the range of high viscosity is sharply different from what has been reported previously by several workers.
To account for this phenomenon, the model proposed to date, in which only the inertia force is taken into account, is modified for addition of the viscous force. As a result, the following semiempirical equation is obtained:
K(Γ/μ)^2/3+2•3^5/3/15(Γ/μ)^5/3=A(ρσ³/μ⁴g)^1/3
where K and A are the numerical constants to be evaluated appropriately.
It has been demonstrated that the proposed equation gives good correlation in a wide range of (ρσ³/μ⁴g).