Oscillation Transition Routes of Buoyant-Thermocapillary Convection in Annular Liquid Layers

There are various oscillation transition routes of buoyant-thermocapillary convection in an annular liquid layer. Three types of transition routes including quasi-periodic bifurcation, period-doubling bifurcation and tangent bifurcation have been observed. In our ground experiments, the depth of liquid layer is in a range of 1.6–2.4 mm. The silicone oil with Prandtl number of 28.6 is selected as the liquid medium. The temperature oscillation is detected by a single-point temperature measuring system and the surface oscillation is measured by a laser displacement-sensor with high resolution. The step-heating mode is adopted in the experiments. Transition routes of temperature oscillation and surface oscillation are studied systematically, and the relationship between them is discussed, too.