Thermocapillary convection has always been a hot topic of great importance in either crystal growth or thin films science. A space experiment about thermocapillary convection in an open cylindrical annuli pool will be done on SJ-10 satellite. A payload for space experiment has been established, which includes a cylindrical annuli thermocapillary convection system, a thermocouple temperature controlling system and measurement system, a thermal infrared imager, a high-precision displacement sensor, and an experiment controlling system. Some experiments have been done on the ground in order to compare with the results of space experiment. Some results from the ground experiment are shown, such as temperature oscillation, surface oscillation, and flow pattern transfer.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10409-016-0567-1

The work is funded by the Strategic Priority Research Program on Space Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences: SJ-10 Recoverable Scientific Experiment Satellite (Grant No. XDA04020405 and XDA04020202-05), and by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.11372328).