Hydrodynamics in weak force fields onset of steady thermocapillary convection in a spherical fluid layer under zero-g conditions

In the study of cellular convection in an infinite plane fluid layer with a free surface, both the Archimedes and thermocapillary forces [1–3] have been cited as reasons for the onset of convection. This has also been confirmed experimentally [4], When mass forces are absent or negligibly small it is natural to pose the question of the onset of pure thermocapillary convection or convection caused only by the surface tension gradients (see [2–3]). In the present paper, this problem is examined for a spherical fluid layer under zero-g conditions.     

Thermocapillary instability of the equilibrium of a flat layer containing internal heat sources

In the absence of body forces, a factor which has a strong influence on the equilibrium stability of a nonuniformly heated liquid is the dependence of the coefficient of surface tension on the temperature and the thermocapillary effect generated by it. If the equilibrium temperature gradient is sufficiently great, then the presence of the thermocapillary forces on the free surface can lead to the occurrence of convective motion. The monotonie instability of the equilibrium of a flat layer was investigated in [1–3]. Analysis of nonmonotonic disturbances [4] showed that in the case of an undeformable free surface there is no oscillatory instability. In [5] it was found that oscillatory instability is possible if there is a nonlinear dependence of the coefficient of surface tension on the temperature. The present paper is devoted to numerical investigation of the equilibrium stability of a flat layer with respect to arbitrary disturbances. It is shown that for a deformable free boundary there appears an additional neutral curve, which corresponds to monotonie capillary instability. In addition, when the capillary convection mechanism is taken into account, there appears an oscillatory instability, which becomes the most dangerous in the region of small Prandtl and wave numbers.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 2, pp. 27–31, March–April, 1991.I thank V. K. Andreev for a helpful discussion of the work.     

Unsteady thermocapillary convection in a nonuniformly heated fluid layer

In many technological processes, thin extended layers of nonuniformly heated fluid are used [1–3]. If they are sufficiently thin, thermocapillary forces have a decisive influence on the occurrence and development of motion of the fluid [4–6]. Investigation of convective motion in such a layer is of great interest for estimating the intensity of heat and mass transfer in technological processes. This paper is a study of unsteady thermocapillary motion in a layer of viscous incompressible fluid with free surface in which a thermal inhomogeneity is created at the initial time. Approximate expressions are obtained for the fields of the velocity, temperature, and pressure in the fluid, and also for the shape of the free surface.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 3, pp. 17–25, May–June, 1991.     

Motion of a drop with allowance for thermocapillary forces

A study is made of the motion of a drop in a viscous medium of nonuniform temperature when the dependence of the surface tension on the temperature at the interface of the two media gives rise to additional tangential stresses leading to thermocapillary convection in fluids. The motions of a spherical drop and a deformed drop (when the surface of the drop is determined in the process of finding the solution) are considered. The shape of the drop surface is calculated for different values of the parameters of the problem. Dependences are obtained for the Reynolds number of the thermocapillary drift of drops in the absence of body forces.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 4, pp. 80–86, July–August, 1982.     

Thermocapillary instability of a deformable liquid film

The instability of a plane liquid film with a uniform transverse temperature gradient under conditions of weightlessness is considered. The surface tension is assumed to depend linearly on the temperature. On the basis of an exact solution of the neutral perturbation problem for a layer with deformable boundaries, the instability domains, the dispersion curves, and the shape of the perturbations are determined. It is shown that on the interval of low Prandtl numbers both thermocapillary waves with predominantly longitudinal flow and capillary waves, supported by the thermocapillary effect, with intense transverse liquid flow can develop on the film.Perm'. Translated from Izvestiya Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 5, pp. 30–36, September–October, 1996.     

Jet Formation in Gravitational Flow of a Heated Wavy Liquid Film

Jet formation was studied in the region of two-dimensional and three-dimensional waves in a heated liquid film flowing down a vertical surface. Jet-to-jet spacings were measured versus the film Reynolds number and the heat flow density. Three-dimensional waves on the film surface were formed naturally or by artificial perturbations. In addition to the thermocapillary mechanism of jet formation, a thermocapillary–wavy mechanism was found to exist.     

Temperature pulsations and thermocapillary effects on the surface of a wavy heated liquid film

The temperature pulsations and wave characteristics in water film flow along a vertical plate with a heater are investigated. Using an infrared scanner, the temperature field on the film surface is measured for various heat flux densities on the heater. Experimental data on the variation of the temperature with time on a local segment of the liquid film surface during wave transmission are obtained. In the absence of a heat flux the data obtained are in good agreement with the results of other researchers for an isothermal liquid film. When the down-flowing liquid is heated, the thermocapillary forces lead to the formation of rivulets and a thin film between them. It is shown that in the inter-rivulet zone the relative wave amplitude increases due to the action of the thermocapillary forces.     

Equilibrium of a free nonisothermal liquid film

The equilibrium of a free weightless liquid film fixed over a planar contour and acted upon by thermocapillary forces is studied. Trends in the behavior of free liquid films are important for understanding the processes occurring in foams. The equilibrium equations for a nonisothermal weightless free film are derived for the two limiting cases: the temperature of the film is considered a known function of the coordinates; the free surface of the film is thermally insulated. For the plane and axisymmetric cases, the existence conditions for the solutions of the resulting nonlinear boundary-value problems are found and their properties are studied. For the general case, an approximate solution of the equilibrium problem is obtained provided that the analogue of the Marangoni number is small. __________ Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika i Tekhnicheskaya Fizika, Vol. 48, No. 3, pp. 16–29, May–June, 2007.     

Convection in a two-layer system due to the combined action of the Rayleigh and thermocapillary instability mechanisms

In a two-layer system loss of stability may be monotonic or oscillatory in character. Increasing oscillatory perturbations have been detected in the case of both Rayleigh [1, 2] and thermocapillary convection [3–5]; however, for many systems the minimum of the neutral curve corresponds to monotonic perturbations. In [5] an example was given of a system for which oscillatory instability is most dangerous when the thermogravitational and thermocapillary instability mechanisms are simultaneously operative. In this paper the occurrence of convection in a two-layer system due to the combined action of the Rayleigh (volume) and thermocapillary (surface) instability mechanisms is systematically investigated. It is shown that when the Rayleigh mechanism operates primarily in the upper layer of fluid, in the presence of a thermocapillary effect oscillatory instability may be the more dangerous. If thermogravitational convection is excited in the lower layer of fluid, the instability will be monotonic.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 1, pp. 166–170, January–February, 1987.     

Study of the thermocapillary effect on a wavy falling film using a fiber optical thickness probe

The wave flow of a water film down a vertical plate with a 150×150 mm heater has been experimentally studied. The effect of the heat flux on the film flow leads to the formation of periodically flowing rivulets and thin film between them due to the action of thermocapillary forces in spanwise direction. The local film thickness between rivulets is measured by means of a noncontact fiber optical probe. As the heat flux grows, the average film thickness continuously decreases but upon reaching about 50% of the initial thickness, the film spontaneously breaks down. It is found that the decrease of the wave amplitude between rivulets is caused by the reduction of the local Reynolds number and is in a qualitative agreement with the laws of the hydrodynamics for the isothermal case. That is, no appreciable effect of streamwise thermocapillary forces on the wave amplitudes is detected. The experimental results are in good agreement with recently published data obtained by the capacitance method.     

Investigation of hydrodynamic and heat and mass transfer processes for crystal growing by the Czochralski method

A mathematical model and numerical method are developed and used to investigate nonstationary flow and heat and mass transfer regimes in a melt appropriate to the conditions of Czochralski crystal growth. A study is made of the separate and combined influence of rotation and thermal, concentration, and thermocapillary convection on the distribution of the temperature and the dopant in the range of regime parameters corresponding to large charging masses of the melt with small value of the kinematic viscosity. Large-scale fluctuations are found to occur when rotation and thermal convection interact. Thermocapillary convection is shown to have an important influence on the resulting motion when it interacts with the thermal and concentration forms of convection. A comparison is made with the results of experimental and theoretical investigations of other authors.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 1, pp. 55–65, January–February, 1981.     

Investigation of thermocapillary and thermogravitational convection in a fluid with local heating

The results of a numerical solution of the problem of the unsteady convective motion generated in a fluid layer by the formation at the initial instant of a heated zone in the form of a thin cylindrical column, extending from the surface into the interior of the fluid, are presented. The problem is formulated with allowance for both thermocapillary and thermogravitational convection. The influence of the thermocapillary and thermogravitational effects on the fluid motion for various layer thicknesses is subjected to parametric analysis.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 6, pp. 25–29, November–December, 1989.     

Interaction of the thermovibrational and thermocapillary convection mechanisms

Thermal convection in microgravity induced by the combined action of thermocapillary forces and vibrations is considered. In the high-frequency approximation the thermovibrational forces are written for the case in which isothermal mixing of the fluid is unimportant. The authors' own work and new results of investigating the effect of vibration on thermocapillary instability, of numerically modeling the heat and mass transfer in open cavities and of experiments on the vibrational suppression of surface deformation are reviewed. The prospects for the practical application of the results obtained are discussed.     

Thermocapillary convection in two-layer systems in the presence of a surface active agent at the interface

Convective instability in a layered system due to the thermocapillary effect was investigated in [1–5]. In these studies it was shown that the perturbations responsible for equilibrium crisis may build up either monotonically or in an oscillatory fashion. In [6] the stabilizing effect of a surface active agent (SAA) on thermocapillary instability was established for a layer with a free surface. For layers of infinite thickness the effect of SAA on thermocapillary convection was studied in [7–9]. The present investigation is concerned with thermocapillary convection in a system of two layers of finite thickness in the presence of an SAA. Convection due to the lift force is not considered. It is established that the principal result of the action of the SAA is not the stabilizing effect on the monotonic mode but the appearance of a new type of oscillatory instability.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 2 pp. 3–8, March–April, 1986.In conclusion the authors wish to thank E. M. Zhukhovitskii for discussind the results.     

Thermocapillary Vortices Induced by a Light Beam near a Bubble Surface in a Hele-Shaw Cell

This paper studies thermocapillary vortices induced by local heating of a bubble surface in a Hele-Shaw cell by a light beam. It is found that the vortex rotation frequency and its depth depend on the distance from the light-beam projection onto the layer to the bubble boundary. The surface velocity of the thermocapillary flow is calculated using the balance of the near-surface and return flows of the thermocapillary vortex and the equality of capillary and dynamic pressures. It is shown that a decrease in the surface velocity and the vortex rotation frequency with increase in the distance from the light beam to the bubble surface is due to a decrease in the temperature gradient between the illuminated and cold poles of the bubble.__________Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika i Tekhnicheskaya Fizika, Vol. 46, No. 5, pp. 93–99, September–October, 2005.     

Development of hydrodynamic instability in film condensation on a cylindrical tube in weightlessness

In the process of film condensation on an heat exchanger tube in weightlessness the evolution of small perturbations of the free surface is determined not only by capillary forces but also by the nature of the heat and mass exchange in the liquid-vapor system. In the present paper it is shown that simultaneously taking all these factors into account, even within the framework of a very simple model, leads to results which differ qualitatively from the known formulas for the case of thermal equilibrium. Under the assumption that the velocity profile is quasi-steady, both analytic formulas and corrections to these formulas associated with the unsteady term in the equation of motion are obtained.Moscow. Translated from Izvestiya Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 6, pp. 106–110, November–December, 1995.     

Convective flows in a cylindrical fluid zone in a high-frequency vibration field

Convective flows of a nonuniformly heated fluid in a cylindrical fluid zone in a high-frequency longitudinal vibration field are studied. Vibration frequencies which are high as compared with dissipative decrements and capillary frequencies, but small as compared with acoustic frequencies are considered. The general method formulated earlier for describing the behavior of inhomogeneous fluids under the influence of high-frequency vibrations is used. The interaction between the vibrational flow mechanisms and thermocapillary effects on a free surface is analyzed.Perm'. Marseilles (France). Translated from Izvestiya Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 5, pp. 53–61, September–October, 1994.     

Deformation of the Free Surface in a Moving Locally-Heated Thin Liquid Layer

Liquid film flow on a vertical surface is studied experimentally and theoretically under the determining influence of the thermocapillary forces. In the two-dimensional steady-state case the shape of the film surface is calculated numerically within the thin layer approximation with allowance for the temperature dependence of the viscosity of the liquid and redistribution of the heat flux in the heating element. A local heat source was used in the experiments to produce temperature gradients up to 10 K/mm on the liquid surface. The film thickness was determined by means of the schlieren method with reflection. The relative thickness of the roller in the upper heater edge zone, characteristic of the formation of regular structures, is measured. The thickness is h/h ₀=1.32 ±0.07, which agrees satisfactorily with the results of numerical calculations.     

Thermocapillary convection in the shallow bath formed when a solid is melted by a concentrated energy flux

The unsteady thermocapillary motion of the liquid phase (motion caused by the temperature dependence of the surface tension and the nonuniform heating of the free surface of the melt) associated with the melting of metals by a concentrated energy flux (CEF) is investigated taking into account the variation of the size and shape of the molten bath with time. It is assumed that the free surface of the liquid is plane, and that the molten bath is shallow, i.e., its radius considerably exceeds the depth. It is shown that the movement of the bottom of the bath into the interior of the metal has an important influence on the hydrodynamic processes and leads to quantitative and qualitative differences from the results obtained for flows with plane and stationary boundaries of the liquid layer.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 1, pp. 155–162, January–February, 1988.     

Convection and heat transfer in a spherical vessel,partly filled with liquid,under low-gravity conditions

In [1] the problem of natural and thermocapillary convection in a spherical vessel containing a bubble under low-gravity conditions, i.e., at low Bond numbers (Bo 1), was examined in one of the limiting cases — where the bubble is located in the center of the vessel. The results of [1] and experimental data, however, indicate that when heat is supplied from outside over a long period, the most probable location of the bubble under low-gravity conditions is at the vessel wall. In this paper, which is a continuation of [1], convection and heat transfer in the latter case are investigated. Possible locations of the bubble at the top and bottom of the vessel relative to the resultant of the weak mass forces are discussed. It is shown that natural and thermocapillary convection contribute to the increase in the mean free-surface temperature, which determines the increase in pressure in the closed vessel for a prescribed heat flux. The rates of increase of this temperature are compared in the cases considered here and in [1–4], where there is a fuller bibliography relating to convective heat and mass transfer under low-gravity conditions.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 2, pp. 154–159, March–April, 1976.