What is it about?
We study experimentally and numerically the effect of surface pollution on temperature-driven surface flows. Such flows surge whenever there is a temperature variation along a fluid surface (thermocapillary effect), but surface pollution can weaken or even stop the flow.
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Why is it important?
One application of thermocapillary flows is found in microrobotics and micromanufacturing (10.1126/scirobotics.abd3557). Understanding the effect of surface pollution can help us to better control the flow, and thus the manipulated particles. Moreover, the presented model gives some insight towards the miniaturizations of such systems.
Perspectives
Another important aspect of the flow that has not been covered in this work is the flow dynamics. The interplay between the heat transport, flow velocity, and pollutants transport can result in different dynamics depending on the fluid parameters (notably, the Prandtl number).
Franco Pinan Basualdo
Universite Libre de Bruxelles
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This page is a summary of: Effect of insoluble surfactants on a thermocapillary flow, Physics of Fluids, July 2021, American Institute of Physics,
DOI: 10.1063/5.0055373.
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