Effects of droplet size on intrusion of sub-surface oil spills

[摘要] This thesis explores the effects of droplet size on droplet intrusion in sub-surface oil spills. Laboratory experiments were performed where glass beads of various sizes, which serve to simulate oil droplets in deepsea oil spills, were released vertically in a quiescent salinity stratified ambient and descended as multi-phase plumes. The two-tank stratification method was used to create linear density profiles for all experiments. The resulting radial concentration distributions of the dispersed phases were obtained by collecting the settled particles from the bottom of the tank. The radial distributions recorded were found to resemble Gaussian distributions, based on visual observations and analyses of kurtosis, which is consistent with particles being vertically well mixed in the intrusion layer. A new typology was proposed to describe plume structures with UN= us/(BN)¹/⁴

[发布机构] Massachusetts Institute of Technology