Usefulness of experiments with model fluid for thermocapillary convection - Effect of Prandtl number on two-dimensional thermocapillary convection

The floating zone technique is promising to realize large, high-quality crystals under microgravity. Thermocapillary flow, which is the dominant convection in a floating zone under microgravity, has been widely reported in the literature to be extremely sensitive to the Prandtl number Pr. In the present study, the effect of Pr on steady thermocapillary convection is re-evaluated based on both analytical and numerical solutions. The results indicate that an approximate similarity of temperature and velocity structures in a large Pr range is realized under suitable conditions, fixing the Marangoni number Ma, in steady two-dimensional regime.