Nonlinear Benard-Marangoni Convection

抄録

Weakly nonlinear thermal convection in a horizontal fluid layer bounded above by a free surface is studied by taking effects of the surface tension gradient into account. It is found that the critical Rayleigh number, the horizontal size of convection cells and the instability of the convection can be affected by the surface tension gradient. The heat transported by the convection may have a maximum value at a certain value of the Marangoni number M. For the particular range of M, the hexagonal flow pattern may arise with either upward or downward motion at the cells’ centers.