Experimental Investigation of Thermocapillary Convection in a Liquid Layer with Evaporating Interface

Thermocapillary convection coupling with the evaporation effect of evaporating liquids is studied experimentally. This study focused on an evaporation liquid layer in a rectangular cavity subjected to a horizontal temperature gradient when the top evaporating surface is open to air, while most previous works only studied pure thermocapillary convection without evaporation. Two liquids with different evaporating rates are used to study the coupling of evaporation and thermocapillary convection, and the interfacial temperature profiles for different temperature gradients are measured. The experimental results indicate evidently the influence of evaporation effect on the thermocapillary convection and interfacial temperature profiles. The steady multicellular flow and the oscillatory multicellular flow in the evaporation liquid layer are observed by using the particle-image-velocimetry method.