Impregnation of a porous ribbon

We consider a ribbon circulating in a liquid bath (at a velocity V, over a distance L). The ribbon is porous and spontaneously sucks in some liquid. W hen going out vertically, it drags a Landau-Levich film. But the capillary process goes on: ultimately, the external film vanishes at a certain height H. We discuss the flow and the H value for a very crude mode. We then expe ct H similar to Ca-7/6, where Ca is the capillary number (assumed to be sma ll). (C) Academie des sciences/Elsevier, Paris.