NATURAL-CONVECTION WITH THERMOCAPILLARY AND GRAVITY MODULATION EFFECTS IN LOW-GRAVITY ENVIRONMENTS

The characteristics of natural convection in a rectangular cavity with simultaneous thermocapillary and gravity modulation effects have been studied numerically. Because of the practical applications, the simulation focuses on low-Prandtl-number and zero-gravity situations. The two-dimensional, time-dependent Navier-Stokes and energy equations are numerically integrated by a semi-implicit time-splitting method. For a specific Rayleigh number, Prandtl number, and Marangoni number, the problem is investigated for different modulation frequencies and directions. From the results, it can be concluded that thermocapillarity seriously affected the flowfield, especially in high-frequency cases.