NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF MARANGONI CONVECTION IN THE FLOATING ZONE UNDER MICROGRAVITY BY FEM
微重力环境下Marangoni对流的有限元数值模拟

The convection of melt in a floating zone driven by surface tension due to temperature gradient is studied in this paper. Axisymmetric steady momentum and energy equations along with kinetic and dynamic boundary conditions are numerically solved by FEM. The effects of free surface of the liquid bridge have been firstly taken into account. We finally yield the solutions for the configuration, flow field, temperature distribution and pressure on the interface. It is shown that the dynamic crescent-shaped liquid-gas interface are wellappro-ximated by the static one if capillary number Ca<1. The influences of Ca and Gr on the configuration of floating zone are analysed. Also, the temperature distribution and flow pattern corresponding to several pairs of Ma and Bi numbers are provided in the article.