Numerical simulation of drop Marangoni migration under microgravity

Thermocapillary motion of a drop in a uniform temperature gradient is investigated numerically. The three-dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes and energy equations are solved by the finite-element method. The front tracking technique is employed to describe the drop interface. To simplify the calculation, the drop shape is assumed to be a sphere. It has been verified that the assumption is reasonable under the microgravity environment. Some calculations have been performed to deal with the thermocapillary motion for the drops of different sizes. It has been verified that the calculated results are in good agreement with available experimental and numerical results. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Numerical investigation of thermocapillary migration of the drop for large Marangoni numbers

An axisymmetric model is adopted to simulate the problem of unsteady drop thermocapillary motion for large Marangoni numbers. Front tracking methods are used in the investigation. It is found that the non-dimensional drop migration velocity will decrease with increasing Marangoni number. This agrees well with the experimental results obtained from the 4th Shen-Zhou space ship. In the meanwhile, this is also the first time for numerical simulations to verify the experimental phenomenon under large Marangoni numbers.

Drop migration of middle Reynolds number in a vertical temperature gradient

The experimental investigation of the thermocapillary drop migration in a vertical temperature gradient uns performed on ground. Silicon oil and pure soybean oil were used as experimental medium in drops and as continuous phases, respectively, in the present experiment. The drop migration, under the combined effects of buoyancy: and thermocapillarity, was studied for middle Reynolds numbers in order of magnitude O(10(1)). The drop migration velocities depending on drop diameters were obtained. The present experimental results show relatively small migration velocity in comparison with the one suggested by Young et nl. for linear theory of small Reynolds number. An example of flow patterns inside the drop was observed by PIV method.

Hardware development and ground-based studies for drop shaft experiment on oscillatory convection in half floating-zone

Coordinated measurement of temperature, velocity and free surface oscillation were obtained by using the drop shaft facility for microgravity experiments of half floating zone convection. The ground-based studies gave transition from steady to oscillatory convection for multi-quantities measurement.