Numerical study of thermocapillary instabilities in evaporating annular pools and sessile droplets

Pedro Saenz, Prashant Valluri, Khellil Sefiane, George Karapetsas, Omar Matar

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract / Description of output

We investigate thermocapillary flows due to temperature-induced surface tension gradients in annular liquid pools via full two-phase direct numerical simulations in 3D. Phase-change, interface deformation and wettability phenomena are taken into consideration by using a variant of the volume-of-fluid method. The simulation results are validated against experiments (Schwabe et al. 2003 {\&} Riley et al. 1998) and theory (Smith {\&} Davis 1983). The transient results show the evolution of the flow towards an oscillatory state characterized by interfacial hydrothermal waves (HTWs). We present the effects of non-uniform evaporation fluxes and the liquid depths on the linear and non-linear development of these thermocapillary instabilities. The influence on bulk flows, surface temperature patterns and interface deformations are also shown. We finally introduce spontaneously self-excited HTWs in evaporating sessile droplets simulated using novel numerical methods and compare the results against analytical models and experiments.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAPS/DFD Fall Meeting, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2011

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