Challenges in and Approaches to Modeling the Complexities of Deepwater Oil and Gas Release

Reddy, Rupesh K.; Rao, Abhijit; Yu, Zaichao; Wu, Chen; Nandakumar, K.; Thibodeaux, Louis J.; Valsaraj, Kalliat T.

doi:10.1002/9781118825662.ch4

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 72 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…[6] The droplets resulting from this primary breakup can further disintegrate into finer ones when they interact with the existing turbulent field. The instabilities and shear layer interactions resulting from the competition between cohesive and disruptive forces produce small dispersed droplets.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The instabilities and shear layer interactions resulting from the competition between cohesive and disruptive forces produce small dispersed droplets. [6] The droplets resulting from this primary breakup can further disintegrate into finer ones when they interact with the existing turbulent field. The turbulence in a system is characterized by the presence of eddies with a wide range of length scales.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

CFD with population balance model to predict droplet size distribution in submerged turbulent multiphase jets

et al. 2016

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

During deepwater oil spill events, oil is released into a relatively stagnant environment (ocean water) in an uncontrolled manner. The oil phase initially emerges as a jet and the gushing oil loses its momentum energy and results in entrainment of surrounding water. The shear interaction between the oil mass and the ambient fluid results in generation of droplets with wide size distribution. In this study, we present a numerical model for predicting the droplet size distribution resulting from the interaction of turbulent oil jets with the surrounding quiescent environment. We achieve this objective by integrating traditional multiphase CFD models with a population balance approach. The developed model has been validated against the experimental observations reported in Johansen et al. [12] The 'Mixture model' has been employed for evaluating flow fields in the system. We restrict our study to the atomization regime, where the droplet disintegration process has a greater significance over the competing coalescence mechanism. The population balance equation has been solved using the 'Class method' and the disintegration of droplets has been modelled by including the breakage kernel suggested by Lehr. [27] The developed model has been used to analyze the effect of dispersed (oil) phase flow rates, the presence of dispersants, and the presence of air in the jet phase on the overall size distribution of oil droplets. We also present a case which compares the droplet size distributions obtained by using the flow field evaluated by a more rigorous Eulerian Two-Fluid model over Mixture model.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

CFD with population balance model to predict droplet size distribution in submerged turbulent multiphase jets

et al. 2016

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The complex mechanisms that occur in the deep water oil spill where the dissolved lighter hydrocarbons in the oil are eventually transferred to the sea water, is one of the motivations for this study. In this study, we focus on the mass transfer, however, in reality many other coupled mechanisms such as gas release with decreasing hydrostatic head, surfactant effects on mass transfer and interaction with suspended marine particulate matter that may result in eventual sinking of droplet, are all important . The oil droplets can be assumed as a pseudo binary mixture, the first component includes all lighter hydrocarbons which are soluble in the surrounding water and the second component represents all heavier hydrocarbons practically insoluble in water.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of unsteady mass transfer on dynamics of rising and sinking droplet in water: Experimental and CFD study

et al. 2014

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Experimental and numerical investigations were conducted to study the effect of unsteady mass transfer on the dynamics of an organic droplet released in quiescent water. The situation is important and relevant to deep sea oil spill scenario. The droplet contains two components, one is heavier (immiscible) than water and other is lighter (miscible). When released, with an initial mixture density (890-975 kg/m 3 ) lower than that of surrounding water, droplet rises in the column. The mass transfer of lighter solute component into water causes the droplet density to increase and droplet sinks when the density exceeds that of water. A mass transfer correlation accounting for the loss of the solute, based on Reynolds, Grashoff and Schmidt numbers was developed. A 2D axisymmetric CFD model accounting for species transport was developed to emulate the experimental observations. The study also helped in identifying dominant mass transfer mechanisms during different stages of droplet motion.

show abstract

Challenges in and Approaches to Modeling the Complexities of Deepwater Oil and Gas Release

Cited by 2 publications

References 72 publications

CFD with population balance model to predict droplet size distribution in submerged turbulent multiphase jets

CFD with population balance model to predict droplet size distribution in submerged turbulent multiphase jets

Influence of unsteady mass transfer on dynamics of rising and sinking droplet in water: Experimental and CFD study

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About