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The Electroconvective Flows of a Weakly Conducting Liquid in the External DC and AC Electric Fields

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Abstract

The two-dimensional nonlinear electroconvective patterns in a horizontal capacitor filled with a low conductive liquid are numerically investigated in the case of the autonomous injection from cathode and heating from above. Traveling waves with constant and modulated amplitudes and phase velocities and stationary convective patterns exist in a steady electric field. Two types of stable solutions are found under the influence of harmonic modulation of electric field. The modulated traveling wave (MTW) is described by quasiperiodic oscillations of convective characteristics. The patterns of modulated electroconvection (MEC) oscillate around some average flow synchronously with the external field and have no lateral velocity. The average intensity of convective mixing in the MTW solution is an order of magnitude smaller than in the MEC mode. The MTW solution loses stability and the MEC solution occurs when the modulation amplitude exceeds some critical value, \({\alpha }_{*}\). The dependence of the critical amplitude, \({\alpha }_{*}\), on the electric field frequency is obtained.

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The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Author notes

  1. Oleg Nekrasov contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics of Phase Transitions, Perm State University, Street, 15 Bukirev Street, Perm, 614990, Russia

    Oleg Nekrasov & Boris Smorodin

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  1. Oleg Nekrasov
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  2. Boris Smorodin
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Contributions

B.L. Smorodin and O.O. Nekrasov made an equal contribution to the formulation of the problem, computer modeling, simulation, analysis and interpretation of numerical results, as well as the final approval of the version of the article for publication.

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Correspondence to Boris Smorodin.

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Nekrasov, O., Smorodin, B. The Electroconvective Flows of a Weakly Conducting Liquid in the External DC and AC Electric Fields. Microgravity Sci. Technol. 34, 75 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12217-022-10002-3

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