Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 1203–1206 (2001)

Suppression of Dripping from a Ceiling

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John M. Burgess^*, Anne Juel^†, W. D. McCormick, J. B. Swift, and Harry L. Swinney^‡
Center for Nonlinear Dynamics and Department of Physics, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712

Received 18 July 2000; published in the issue dated 12 February 2001

An isothermal layer suspended from a surface is gravitationally (Rayleigh-Taylor) unstable. We find that, when a vertical temperature difference ΔT above a critical value (ΔT)_c is imposed across the liquid-gas layer system (heated from below), the restoring force provided by the temperature-dependent surface tension (thermocapillarity) can stabilize the layer. Our measurements of the most unstable wave number for ΔT<(ΔT)_c agree well with our linear stability analysis. The instability occurs at long wavelengths: the most unstable wavelength at (ΔT)_c is infinite.

URL:

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.86.1203

DOI:

10.1103/PhysRevLett.86.1203

PACS:

47.20.Dr, 47.20.Ma, 68.15.+e

^*Electronic address: jburgess@chaos.ph.utexas.edu

^†Present address: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom.

^‡Electronic address: swinney@chaos.ph.utexas.edu

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 1203–1206 (2001)

Suppression of Dripping from a Ceiling