Study on the film thickness and surface wave velocity of the thin liquid film formed by a round jet obliquely impinging on a horizontal plate

For a thin liquid film (in a supercritical flow) prior to the formation of a non-circular hydraulic jump formed by a round jet obliquely impinging on a horizontal plate, the time-averaged film thickness and the surface wave velocity are extracted based on the measured transient film thickness. On the one hand, the effect of many factors, including the jet velocity, impingement angle, azimuthal angle, liquid viscosity, and surface tension, on the time-averaged film thickness and surface wave velocity are discussed. When the jet Reynolds number increases to about 1.4×104, the film thickness profile suddenly increases, and the transition of liquid flow from laminar to turbulent occurs. Meanwhile, a rapid increase is observed downstream of the turbulent film thickness profile. The influence of surface tension on the time-averaged film thickness and surface wave velocity is negligible for thin liquid films before non-circular hydraulic jumps. Nonetheless, the surface tension has a significant influence on the interface profile of non-circular hydraulic jumps. Furthermore, a “crescent” kink region upstream of the jump can be identified when the surface tension is lower than 40.6 mN/m. On the other hand, experimental results are used to verify the prediction accuracy of existing approximate solutions. The laminar approximate solution with a quadratic boundary layer velocity profile can accurately predict the film thickness distribution of most laminar thin liquid films, except downstream of the thin liquid films with a dynamic viscosity higher than 9.71 mPa s. The surface wave velocities are found to be close to the predicted surface velocities of the approximate solutions.