The Onset of Fluid Rotation in a Thermogravitational Boundary Layer with Local Cooling of the Free Surface

Abstract

Axisymmetric regimes of flows of an inhomogeneous fluid in the boundary layer near a free surface are calculated for a nonuniform temperature distribution on this surface. For the fluid motion equations written in the Oberbeck-Boussinesq approximation, the leading terms of asymptotic expansions of solutions of a steady-state problem are constructed. It is shown that in the presence of local cooling of the free surface and a rising outer fluid stream, as a result of a bifurcation, a pair of rotational regimes may develop in a thin boundary layer near the free surface, with no rotation observed outside this layer. No bifurcation of rotation was detected in the case of local heating of the free surface.