Thermocapillary migration of long bubbles in polygonal tubes. II. Experiments

We study experimentally the thermocapillary migration of a long gas bubble in a horizontal pipe of rectangular cross section. An imposed axial temperature gradient produces a gradient of surface tension leading to a steady migration of the bubble towards the hotter region. The bubble velocity is found to be independent of bubble length for sufficiently long bubbles, and to vary linearly with the temperature gradient. For pipes of small vertical dimension, gravity is negligible and the measurements of the bubble velocity are in good agreement with the zero gravity theory of Mazouchi and Homsy [Phys. Fluids 13, 1594 (2001)]. In larger pipes, gravity is no longer negligible and the bubble is observed to move faster than that theory predicts. A simple calculation taking into account the combined effect of buoyant rise and thermocapillary stress accounts for these results. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.