Thermocapillary motion

Abstract

When the liquid has a free interface and is heated nonuniformly then besides the gravitational convection a different motion appears. This kind of a motion is originated because of a gradient of the surface tension over the liquid interface. It is suggested to call it a thermocapillary motion in analogy with an electrocapillary motion. The present paper develops a theory of thermocapillary motion for two distinct geometries: a liquid layer and a liquid drop suspended in another viscous medium. For both geometries, assuming the non-deformable interfaces, the velocity profiles are found and feasibility of the assumptions made is discussed. To our knowledge, this is a first ether attempt of theoretical consideration of the thermocapillary motion (KM & SB).