OBLIQUE AND HEAD-ON COLLISIONS OF SOLITARY WAVES IN MARANGONI-BENARD CONVECTION

In Marangoni-Benard convection with mass transfer from gas phase to liquid phase, it is found that solitary waves, excited and sustained by Marangoni stresses, are very stable during interactions with others, keeping their original shapes and celerities after interactions, thus experiencing at most a phase shift. Both positive and negative phase shifts have been observed for different types of oblique interaction. A ''critical'' angle, at which zero phase shift occurs as a result of the interaction, has been defined to delineate regions of negative and positive phase shifts.