Competition of intrinsic and topographically imposed patterns in Bénard-Marangoni convection

A study of intrinsic and topologically imposed patterns in Benard-Marangoni convection was performed. Periodic topographic patterns on the heated surface were used to control the structure of Benard-Marangoni convection cells. A connective pattern was formed when the periodicity of the topographic pattern matched the intrinsic periodicity of the convection cells. The pattern of convection cells exhibited sharp transitions between different patterns commensurate with the imposed pattern as the ratio of the intrinsic and perturbing length scales changed. Inorder to adapt continuously to external perturbation the convection cells used the unconstrained dimension for imposed patterns with periodicity in one dimension.