Thermocapillary flow in a liquid layer at minimum in surface tension (Q1384763)

The problem of thermocapillary (Marangoni) flow in a liquid layer has been investigated by many researchers and under various starting assumptions. In this paper, the authors obtain exact similarity solutions to the steady two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations and the temperature equation for thermocapillary flow in a thin viscous layer on a horizontal rigid plane. The upper free surface of the layer, that is exposed to the constant property motionless ambient gas, is assumed flat and non-deformable, which is a crucial assumption for the existence of similarity solutions. Thermally the liquid layer is subjected to temperature gradients in three distinguished ways, both in transverse as well as in the streamwise direction. The surface tension is assumed to have quadratic dependence on temperature, whereas all other physical characteristics of the liquid are supposed to be constant. The gravitational force is retained in the Navier-Stokes equations, while buoyancy forces and the dissipation term in the energy equation are disregarded. Contrary to the usual convention, in this paper \(M\) stands for the Reynolds number \(Re\) in the dimensionless Navier-Stokes equations, and it is (for this reviewer misleadingly) named the Marangoni number. Flow patterns and temperature fields are presented for different \(M\) and for Prandtl number \(Pr=1\). From the numerical investigation the authors have concluded that for \(M\) larger than a certain value, solutions of the problem do not exist.