Migration of a bubble in front of a directionally solidified interface

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2007 Apr;75(4 Pt 1):042602. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.75.042602. Epub 2007 Apr 30.

Abstract

We examine the quasistatic thermocapillary migration of a gas bubble normal to a solidified interface. The analysis accounts for the deformation of the solid-liquid interface caused by the bubble's presence. An expression for the distance between the bubble surface and the crystal-melt interface is derived, and used to quantify the dependence of the bubble's migration velocity on the processing variables and material properties of the directional solidification process.