| Abstract: | 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. |
