Marangoni convection in a rotating fluid layer with non-uniform temperature gradient

Abstract

The onset of Marangoni convection driven by surface tension gradients in a thin horizontal fluid layer is studied by means of linear stability analysis assuming that one of the bounding surfaces is free and adiabatic and the other rigid adiabatic or isothermal. A Galerkin technique is used to obtain the eigenvalues which are then computed numerically. The Coriolis force and inverted parabolic basic temperature profile are suitable for material processing in a microgravity environment for they suppress Marangoni convection considerably. The analytical results compare well with the numerical results of Vidai and Acrivos [Physics Fluids9, 615-616 (1966)] in the absence of Coriolis force.