Coupled buoyancy and Marangoni convection in acetone: experiments and comparison with numerical simulations

Abstract

This paper presents a study of the convection in acetone due jointly to the thermocapillary (Marangoni) and thermogravitational effects. The liquid (acetone) is submitted to a horizontal temperature difference. Experiments and numerical simulations both show the existence of three different states: monocellular steady states, multicellular steady states and spatio-temporal structures. The results are discussed and compared with the linear stability analysis of Smith & Davis (1983).