Long-Wavelength Instability in Surface-Tension-Driven Benard Convection

Abstract

Laboratory studies reveal a deformational instability that leads to a drained region (dry spot) in an initially flat liquid layer (with a free upper surface) heated uniformly from below. This long-wavelength instability supplants hexagonal convection cells as the primary instability in viscous liquid layers that are sufficiently thin or are in microgravity. The instability occurs at a temperature gradient 34% smaller than predicted by linear stability theory. Numerical simulations show a drained region qualitatively similar to that seen in the experiment.

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References in corpus (1)

• Onset of Surface-Tension-Driven Benard Convection

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