Oscillatory and chaotic thermocapillary convection in a half-zone liquid bridge

Thermocapillary-driven convection in a half-zone liquid bridge was investigated experimentally. The induced flows were categorized into several regimes mainly through the pattern of the suspended particle motion in the bridge and the surface temperature variation. Special attention was paid to the flow structures far beyond the critical condition. Chaotic and turbulent flows were realized in this configuration. They were distinguished from the periodic oscillatory flow by applying the pseudo-phase-space reconstruction from the time series of the surface temperature variation. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.