Horizontal thermocapillary convection of succinonitrile: Steady state, instabilities, and transition to chaos

We present the bifurcation pattern of the thermocapillary horizontal convection flow of succinonitrile (SCN) in an open top parallelepipedic cavity with dimensions 4x1x1. The bifurcation parameter is the Rayleigh number (Ra) that was investigated in the range [150;5x10(8)] while the Marangoni number (Ma) was kept at Ma=10(4). Several steady flow configurations are described for Raless than or equal to5x10(7). Then the occurrence of periodic and quasiperiodic flows is shown for values of Ra<5x10(8) and at Ra=5x10(8) the chaos arises. It is also proved numerically the coexistence of different temporal regimes at the same value of Ra according to the thermal history of the fluid.