Thermocapillary migration and interactions of two nondeformable droplets

Abstract

A numerical study on interactions of two spherical drops in thermocapillary migration in microgravity is presented. Finite-difference methods were adopted and the interfaces of drops were captured by the front-tracking technique. It is found that the arrangement of drops directly influences their migrations and interaction, and that the motion of one drop is mainly determined by the disturbed temperature field because of the existence of the other drop.