Three-dimensional numerical simulation of Marangoni instabilities in non-cylindrical liquid bridges in microgravity

Instability of Marangoni convection in non-cylindrical (convex or concave) liquid bridges of low Prandtl number fluids is investigated by direct three-dimensional and time-dependent simulation of the problem. Body-fitted curvilinear coordinates are adopted; the non-cylindrical original physical domain in the (r,z,φ) space is transformed into a cylindrical computational domain in a (ξ,η,φ) space. The geometry of the domain is transformed using a coordinate transformation method by surface fitting technique. The field equations are numerically solved explicitly in time and with a finite difference technique in a staggered grid. The numerical results are analyzed and interpreted in the general context of the bifurcationʹs theory.