Visualization of Swirling Flows Using PIV in a Plating Bath

A uniform plating system useful in a chemical plating industry has been developed. For plating of tubes, uniform plating thickness has been achieved. The demands of a plating industry such as an uniform thickness plating and the gap plating between two parts were crucial. The development of new plating system was based on fluid dynamic control using flip-flop flows. Small swirls produced by flip-flop flows would give thorough mixing of liquid and take away the phenomenon that wakes behind tubes occur. For clarifying these phenomena, the velocity variations in a plating tank were measured using two-dimensional PIV. Basic experiments using flip-flop flows, conventional flows and jet flows were performed.