Thermocapillary instability of a viscoelastic liquid layer (Q802401)

The stability of a layer of viscoelastic fluid heated from below is studied in the case that the instability is driven by surface-tension gradients at the upper surface. The operative parameter for instability is the Marangoni number and the critical value of this parameter is calculated as a function of Prandtl number, heat-transfer coefficient and elasticity parameters. It is shown that when the elasticity is very small instability sets in as steady convection, as for a Newtonian fluid, but at larger elasticities oscillatory convection is the first mode of instability to appear.