Suppressing Marangoni instability using parametric forcing *

When a fluid layer with a free surface is subjected to a vertical parametric forcing, the free surface deforms on account of the Faraday instability. In the absence of the parametric forcing and when the fluid layer is heated from below, surface tension gradients lead to Marangoni instability beyond a critical temperature gradient, characterized by a Marangoni number. In this work, it is shown that these flows can be suppressed through periodic mechanical forcing. Analysis shows that if the Marangoni number is above the critical value, periodic forcing with a finite amplitude is required to quench the Marangoni flows. Suppressing these flows is of importance in applications in liquid encapsulated crystal growth for the manufacture of semiconductors and in additive manufacturing in microgravity environments.