Influence of gravitational tilt on the thermocapillary convection in a non-axisymmetric liquid bridge

Abstract

Fluid slosh caused by residual acceleration in microgravity is a common problem encountered in space engineering. To solve this problem, the ground-based experiment research on the influence of gravity jitter and gravitational tilt on the thermocapillary convection (TCC) transition behaviour of non-axisymmetric liquid bridge has become an important issue in microgravity fluid management. Based on a mesoscale liquid bridge experimental platform which can realize gravitational tilt, the effect of gravitational tilt on TCC by using a high-speed camera equipped with a near-focus lens and a self-developed interface image recognition package. The results show that the spatio-temporal evolution of TCC by the influence of gravitational tilt is still divided into steady and oscillatory flow. In the stable TCC, the vortex core distortion of cellular flow caused by the imbalance left and right interface curvature invites cellular flow close to the free surface, and it shrinks to the intermediate height. As gravitational tilt increases, the transverse/longitudinal velocity peaks are significantly reduced, peak velocity has been reduced by 26%–27%. Meanwhile, the longitudinal velocity gradient at the free interface increases significantly. Therefore, gravitational tilt plays an important role in improving the surface flow velocity. In the oscillatory TCC, the position of vortex core is closer to the free interface at the hot/cold corner as the periodic mutual occupation of the left and right cellular flows. The TCC is obviously inhibited due to the gravitational tilt. The critical temperature difference is increased by 25% and the onset of temperature oscillation at the hot corner is delayed by 20% compared with conventional gravity condition.