Effect of temperature gradient on the cross-stream migration of a surfactant-laden droplet in Poiseuille flow

摘要

The motion of a viscous droplet in unbounded Poiseuille flow under the combined influence of bulk-insoluble surfactant and linearly varying temperature field aligned in the direction of imposed flow is studied analytically. Neglecting fluid inertia, thermal convection and shape deformation, asymptotic analysis is performed to obtain the velocity of a force-free surfactant-laden droplet. The droplet speed and direction of motion are strongly influenced by the interfacial transport of surfactant, which is governed by surface Peclet number. The present study is focused on the following two limiting situations of surfactant transport: (i) surface-diffusion-dominated surfactant transport considering small surface Peclet number, and (ii) surface-convection-dominated surfactant transport considering high surface Peclet number. Thermocapillary-induced Marangoni stress, the strength of which relative to viscous stress is represented by the thermal Marangoni number, has a strong influence on the distribution of surfactant on the droplet surface. The present study shows that the motion of a surfactant-laden droplet in the combined presence of temperature and imposed Poiseuille flow cannot be obtained by a simple superposition of the following two independent results: migration of a surfactant-free droplet in a temperature gradient, and the motion of a surfactant-laden droplet in a Poiseuille flow. The temperature field not only affects the axial velocity of the droplet, but also has a non-trivial effect on the cross-stream velocity of the droplet in spite of the fact that the temperature gradient is aligned with the Poiseuille flow direction. When the imposed temperature increases in the direction of the Poiseuille flow, the droplet migrates towards the flow centreline. The magnitude of both axial and cross-stream velocity components increases with the thermal Marangoni number. However, when the imposed temperature decreases in the direction of the Poiseuille flow, the magnitu