Size Dependence on Transition to Oscillatory Marangoni Convection in Liquid Bridge

Abstract

Thermocapillary convection is known that flow affects the quality of grown crystal by a Floating Zone (FZ) method. Half zone system is often employed to understand a nature of flow behavior as a simplified model. Two-dimensional steady flow transits to three dimensional oscillatory one at critical temperature difference ΔT_c between supporting disks. This transition condition is organized using critical Marangoni number. The objective of this study is to investigate influence of size on the onset condition of oscillatory flow by comparing experimental results both under terrestrial condition and microgravity aboard the International Space Station. Consequently, it is found that ΔT_c depends on liquid bridge size and linearly decreases with a growing number of liquid bridge length.