Solutal Marangoni convection in a Hele–Shaw geometry: Impact of orientation and gap width

Abstract

We study Marangoni roll cell convection in a ternary mass transfer system composed of cyclohexanol, water and butanol (transferred species) placed in a Hele-Shaw cell. A detailed comparison of experimental and numerical results is carried out for four different cases including horizontal and vertical orientation as well as small and large gap width of the Hele-Shaw cell. The numerical simulations are based on a common gap-averaged model. For the small gap width, the numerical results qualitatively represent the experimental results. However, by comparison with the experiments, the time evolution in the simulation appears generally retarded. The results show that three-dimensional flow effects have to be expected in particular for a horizontal orientation and a large gap width.