Bifurcation of self-similar solutions describing a thermocapillary flow of a fluid in a thin layer

Thermocapillary flows of a fluid in a lamina with a rigid lower wall and a free upper surface, along which the temperature gradient is given in the radial direction, are investigated for large Marangoni numbers. Self-similar solutions which describe the axisymmetric flow regimes of a fluid without the circumferential velocity component are constructed numerically and asymptotically for a system of Prandtl equations. It is shown that a pair of new self-similar flow regimes of a fluid with rotation branches off from the regimes obtained. The new regimes ere calculated numerically and asymptotically. Rostov State University, Rostov-on-Don 344090. Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika i Tekhnicheskaya Fizika, Vol. 40, No. 3, pp. 137–142, May–June, 1999.