Effect of buoyancy on appearance and characteristics of surface tension repeated auto-oscillations

The effect of buoyancy on spontaneous repeated nonlinear oscillations of surface tension, which appear at the free liquid interface by dissolution of a surfactant droplet under the interface, is considered on the basis of direct numerical simulation of the model system behavior. The oscillations are the result of periodically rising and fading Marangoni instability. The buoyancy force per se cannot lead to the oscillatory behavior in the considered system, but it influences strongly both the onset and decay of the instability and therefore, affects appearance and characteristics of the oscillations. If the surfactant solution density is smaller than the density of the pure liquid, then the buoyancy force leads to a considerable decrease of the induction period and the period of oscillations. The buoyancy force affects also the dependence of the oscillation characteristics on the system dimensions. The results of the simulations are compared with the available experimental data.