Large-scale basin testing to simulate realistic oil droplet distributions from subsea release of oil and the effect of subsea dispersant injection

MARINE POLLUTION BULLETIN

卷:163

Article

Brandvik, Per Johan¹  Davies, Emlyn¹  Leirvik, Frode¹  Johansen, Oistein¹  Belore, Randy² 

[1] SINTEF Ocean, Marine Environm Technol, Trondheim, Norway

[2] SL Ross Environm Res Ltd, Ottawa, ON, Canada

关键词: Subsea release;    Dispersant;    Oil;    Droplet formation;    Modelling;    Prediction;    Modified Weber;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.marpolbul.2020.111934

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Small-scale experiments performed at SINTEF, Norway in 2011-12 led to the development of a modified Weber scaling algorithm. The algorithm predicts initial oil droplet sizes (d(50)) from a subsea oil and gas blowout. It was quickly implemented in a high number of operational oil spill models used to predict fate and effect of subsea oil releases both in academia and in the oil industry. This paper presents experimental data from large-scale experiments generating oil droplet data in a more realistic multi-millimeter size range for a subsea blow-out. This new data shows a very high correlation with predictions from the modified Weber scaling algorithm both for untreated oil and oil treated by dispersant injection. This finding is opposed to earlier studies predicting significantly smaller droplets, using a similar approach for estimating droplet sizes, but with calibration coefficients that we mean are not representative of the turbulence present in such releases.

【 授权许可】

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