Abstract
This paper presents a numerical study of fluidized-bed coating on thin plates using an orthogonal collocation technique. Inclusion of the latent heat of fusion term in the boundary conditions of the mathematical model accounts for the fact that some polymer powders used in coating may be partially crystalline. Predictions of coating thickness on flat plates were made with actual polymers used in fluidized-bed coating. Reasonably good agreement between numerical predictions of the coating thickness and experimental coating data of Richart was obtained for steel panels preheated to 316
°C. A good agreement was also obtained between numerical predictions and our coating thickness data for nylon-11 and polyethylene powders. Predicted coating thickness for polyethylene powder on flat plates were obtained with values of heat transfer coefficient closer to those obtained from our experiments.