Heat transfer for Marangoni‐driven boundary layer flow

Abstract

Marangoni convection induced by variation of the surface tension with temperature along a surface influences crystal growth melts and other processes with liquidvapor interfaces, such as boiling in both microgravity and normal gravity in some cases. This paper presents the Nusselt number for Marangoni flow over a flat surface calculated using a similarity solution for both the momentum equations and the energy equation assuming developing boundary layer flow along a surface. Solutions are presented for the surface velocity, the total flow rate, and the Nusselt number for various temperature profiles, Marangoni numbers, and Prandtl numbers. For large bubbles, the predicted boundary layer thickness would be less than the bubble diameter, so the curvature effects could be neglected and this analysis could be used as a first estimate of the effect of Marangoni flow around a vapor bubble.