Marangoni convection in a rotating melting zone

It is expected that under the conditions of reduced gravity in space thermal Marangoni convection, produced by the gradient of surface tension, will be the dominant flow-producing process. In procedures for growing single crystals according to the floating zone technique, the melting zone is frequently brought in a state of rotation to obtain an axisymmetric temperature distribution in the melt. There is, then, a superposition of rotational flow and Marangoni convection. The reported investigation is concerned with the flow region in which a transition takes place between pure Marangoni convection and dominating rotational flow. Attention is given to similarity parameters in a reference system at rest and in a corotational frame, the interaction parameter for the superposition of rotational flow and thermal Marangoni convection, rotational flows between two coaxial disks, an estimate of the interaction between Marangoni convection and rotational flow, flow configurations produced by rotational flow and superimposed Marangoni convection, and the effect of rotation on oscillating Marangoni convection.