• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.628-636
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• 1997

Flow visualization technique incorporating photochromic dye is used to study the flow characteristics of the gravity driven laminar wavy film. The film thickness and wave speed are successfully measured by flow visualization. As the inclination angle increases, the waves have higher peaks and lower substrate thickness. The measured cross stream velocity at the free surface is up to 10% of stream wise velocity, which shows enhanced mixing in the lump of the film. The measured stream wise velocity profiles are close to parabolic profile near the substrate and the peak but show significant velocity defect near the rear side of the wave. The measured wall shear rate distributions show good agreement with the previous workers' numerical results.