Jet Formation at the Spill Site and Resulting Droplet Size Distributions

Resolving the dilemma of dispersant use for deep oil spill response

“…Results of some droplet size experiments and models upon which the existing CRAs are based (e.g. results of V-DROP-J, ASA and SINTEF droplet size models; [1,9,10]) conflict with yet other experiments and models, especially those including 'live' (gas-saturated) oil at ambient deep sea pressures (∼15 MPa) that show a substantial fraction of small droplets [11,12] without the addition SSDI.…”

“…Evidence for the formation of small droplets in the presence of dispersants comes in the form of laboratory experiments, field observations conducted before, during and after DWH, and modeling studies. A number of studies have conducted or summarized experimental approaches to estimate oil droplet sizes from scaled-down laboratory experiments, in test tanks, and, in one case, a field-scale experiment [1,12,13]. Laboratory experiments to assess oil droplet diameters have been undertaken in a small number of facilities: the SINTEF facilities in Norway, the OHMSETT tank in New Jersey, the Southwest Research Institute highpressure vessel in Texas, the high-pressure test facility at the Hamburg University of Technology in Germany [4,5,12] and in stirred sapphire cells at the University of Western Australia [11] and elsewhere.…”

“…As nozzle diameter affects maximum droplet size, scaling of the experimental results requires the use of engineering approximations of turbulence (e.g. Reynolds-or Weber-based scaling), or more detailed knowledge of fundamental turbulence quantities, including the turbulent kinetic energy and turbulence dissipation rate [9,12]. Importantly, for the jet injection experiments, nozzle diameters ranged from 1.5 mm (SINTEF and Hamburg) to 25-50 mm (OHMSETT) and 120 mm in DeepSpill [1,12,13].…”

“…Reynolds-or Weber-based scaling), or more detailed knowledge of fundamental turbulence quantities, including the turbulent kinetic energy and turbulence dissipation rate [9,12]. Importantly, for the jet injection experiments, nozzle diameters ranged from 1.5 mm (SINTEF and Hamburg) to 25-50 mm (OHMSETT) and 120 mm in DeepSpill [1,12,13]. Because of their small size, results of the jet experiments require substantial scaling-up and extrapolation to emulate the DWH conditions [12].…”

“…Importantly, for the jet injection experiments, nozzle diameters ranged from 1.5 mm (SINTEF and Hamburg) to 25-50 mm (OHMSETT) and 120 mm in DeepSpill [1,12,13]. Because of their small size, results of the jet experiments require substantial scaling-up and extrapolation to emulate the DWH conditions [12]. Likewise, a plurality of experiments assessed droplet diameters at ambient (i.e.…”