TY - JOUR
TI - Experimental verification of the feasibility of the CFD approach in an air-knife
AU - Altay Ramazan
AU - Yaman Gülşen
AU - Yaman Ramazan
JN - Thermal Science
PY - 2022
VL - 26
IS - 102
SP - 727
EP - 734
PT - Article
AB - Air knives with very different nominal values are used for various purposes  in the industry. The uses of air knives include the painting and coating  stages of automobile semi-finished products, as well as many stages related  to food production. One of the important sectors among these is the  continuous hot-dip galvanizing process, which is a coating technique in the  steel industry. In addition, the chemical coating process on paper as a  very thin layer is another research topic. The most critical process needed  in these sectors is to ensure a homogeneous air-flow at the expected air  speed of the air-knife. These determine whether the coating on the steel or  the chemical layer on the paper is homogeneous at the desired thickness. In  this study, it is aimed that the air-knife can reach the expected values  (speed and homogeneous distribution) with the expected tolerances, the  shortest time, cost, and the least production process error. First, a design  has been made so that this knife can blow air at the desired speed and  homogeneously. For this, the most appropriate modeling and design values  were created and analyzed with the CFD. The analysis and evaluations of the  design were confirmed as a result of the measurements made on the prototype.  This study shows that the inclusion of this type of modeling and analysis in  the rapid product development process has an important role in minimizing  cost and time.