Abstract: The convection driven by surface tension in floating zones under raicrogravity condition is studied in present paper.The Finite Element Method is used to determine the two-dimensional,axisymm(?)tric steady flow and temperature fields.The interest of this study is centered on the effects of the prandtl number and surface heat loss.The results show that the tangential temperature gradient in the considerable section of free surface and the flow velocity in the liquid bridge decrease as Prandtl number increases, and compared with thermal diffusion the thermal convection becomes more and more dominant over most of the floating-zon(?).A convergent steady flow pat tern and temperature field for a higher Pr (Ma) number can be get if a certain temperature gradient along free surface is maintained.

Key words: Convection, Weightless environment, Researc(?).