Transition to chaos of thermocapillary convection
Abstract
Transition of fluid convection to chaos in dissipative dynamical systems is a subject of great interest for both its theoretical and practical aspects in the fluid mechanics. Extensive studies have shown that there are several routes of the buoyant natural convection to chaos depending on parameters of the dissipative dynamical systems such as the Rayleigh number, the Prandtl number and geometry aspect. Another important type of natural convection is thermocapillary convection driven by the surface-tension gradient prominent in fluid systems with interface in the microgravity condition or in small-scaled terrestrial configurations (The relative importance of the gravity effect to the capillary effect is scaled by the static Bond number, , and the dynamic Bond number, , the geometrical scale of the system in the terrestrial experiments, therefore, was significantly reduced to make the capillary effect dominant). The thermocapillary convection has become one of the fundamental subjects in the microgravity fluid physics and space fluid/heat management. However, most studies now available were focused on the onset of oscillatory thermocapillary convection, the initial regime of the route to chaos. A complete route to chaos in such a new sort of dissipative system is still an attractive open question, especially in the experimental study. In present study, the route to chaos of the thermocapillary convection has been investigated. Several routes to chaos, e.g. period oscillatory convection to quasi-period oscillatory convection with 2 to 3 major frequencies, a series of successive period doubling bifurcations and their combination, of the thermocapillary flow is reported through the temperature measurements and the corresponding real time analysis of frequency spectra accomplished by Fast-Fourier-Transformation (FFT) or numerically. The corresponding phase diagrams are also provided.
- Publication:
-
38th COSPAR Scientific Assembly
- Pub Date:
- 2010
- Bibcode:
- 2010cosp...38.3543L