Analysis of Film Flow Around Rotating Roller Partially Immersed in Ink

This study is intended to analyze the effect of thin ink-film thickness around rotating printing roll on the printing quality in the gravure printing process which is used for making electronics circuit like a RFID tag with a conductive ink. The present work numerically estimates the film thickness around rotating roller partially immersed in ink, for which the volume of fluid (VOF) method was adopted to figure out the film formation process around rotating roller. Parameter studies were performed to compare the effect of ink properties (viscosity, surface tension), operating condition (roller rotating speed, initial immersed angle) on the film thickness. The result indicates that the film thickness has a strong dependency on the rotating speed, while the surface tension has negligible effect.