BUOYANT-THERMOCAPILLARY CONVECTION AND THREE-DIMENSIONAL FLOW IN LIQUID BRIDGES: COMPARISON OF NUMERICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

摘要

The combined thermocapillary-buoyant flow in liquid bridges is investigated. Measurements have revealed counter-intuitive shifts of the critical Marangoni numbers for liquid bridges heated from below rather than from above. Numerical calculations explain this behavior in terms of a delicate balance between stabilizing and destabilizing buoyancy effects. Stability boundaries are given for Pr = 4 and both limiting camiting cases, buoyancy dominating over thermo capillarity and vice versa. In addition, some properties of fully three-dimensional hydrothermal waves will be addressed.