THERMOCAPILLARY-DRIVEN FLOW PAST THE MARANGONI INSTABILITY

Marangoni-driven singularities via mean-curvature flow

In this work, it is demonstrated that the existence and topology of the recently observed interfacial singularities driven by Marangoni effects can be deduced using mean-curvature flow theory extended to account for variations of interfacial tension. This suggests that some of the physical mechanisms underlying the formation of these interfacial singularities may originate from/be modeled by th...

Three-dimensional flow instabilities in a thermocapillary-driven cavity.

A linear stability analysis of the buoyant-thermocapillary flow in open rectangular cavities with aspect ratios in the range Gamma=1.2 to 8 is carried out for Prandtl number Pr=10 and conditions of previous experiments. The results are in very good agreement with most available experimental data. The energy transfer between the basic and the perturbation flow reveals that buoyancy is not direct...

Mixing properties of steady flow in thermocapillary driven droplets

We consider mixing via chaotic advection in microdroplets suspended at the free surface of a liquid substrate and driven along a straight line using the thermocapillary effect. With the help of a model derived by Grigoriev Phys. Fluids 17, 033601 2005 we show that the mixing properties of the flow inside the droplet can vary dramatically as a function of the physical properties of the fluids an...

Thermally driven Marangoni surfers

Precision Marangoni-driven patterning.

A Marangoni flow is shown to occur when a polymer film possessing a spatially-defined surface energy pattern is heated above its glass transition to the liquid state. This can be harnessed to rapidly manufacture polymer films possessing prescribed height profiles. To quantify and verify this phenomenon, a model is described here which accurately predicts the formation, growth, and eventual diss...