I studied physics and engineering as an undergraduate before pressumming a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Delaware. Here I did research in fluid mechanics under my advisor Leonard W. Schwartz, and was awarded a Masters and PHD degree. All of my work since that time has involved the fluid mechanics of thin liquid films.
Using scaling arguments and perturbation theory, we derive the lubrication form of the fluid mechanical equations governing the motion of a thin liquid film on an arbitrarily curved, rotating, axisymmetric substrate. The resulting equations are discretized and then solved numerically using an efficient implicit finite difference algorithm. The primary application for this work is to model the spin coating of the interior of two-piece metal beverage cans, and we consider this problem in some depth. Specifically, we show how adjusting several parameters can eliminate one possible defect in the spin coating process: the tendency for droplets to detach from the substrate when the can is spun at high rotation rates.
Part of the book: Methods for Film Synthesis and Coating Procedures