Project 2. Experimental investigation of oil droplet size distribution in an underwater oil and oil-air jet

Single and multi-phase oil jet experiments were conducted in the Ohmsett facility, including pure oil jet and oil-air jet through a 10.7 mm pipe and 4.7 mm pipe. Measurements of the oil size distribution were obtained. Key findings include:(1) oil droplet size distribution of a meso-scale jet releasing experiment using crude oil were obtained, including the volume median diameter (d50) and distribution profiles; the measurement range of oil size was widened up to 2 cm; (2) for the oil only jet group, numerical simulation tool VDROP-J were applied and matched well with the experimental results; (3) the increase in the gas flow rate resulted in the oil droplet size decrease; (4) for the oil-air jet, the bubbles were qualitatively analyzed and the bubbles were generally larger than oil droplets; (5) the oil droplets tends to be larger in starting and end part of the jet release than in the middle part, which offers guidance on conducting oil jet experiments.

Accepted paper for details: Liu, R., Daskiran, C., Cui, F., Ji, F., Zhao, L., Robinson, B., King, B., Lee, K. and Boufadel, M.C., 2021. Experimental investigation of oil droplet size distribution in underwater oil and oil-air jet. Marine Technology Society Journal (Accepted).