Modeling of oil droplets transport subject to breaking waves: Coupling

Eulerian RANS with Lagrangian particle tracking

F. Cui1, M.C. Boufadel1, F. Gao1, L. Zhao1, T. Ozgokmen2，T. King3, K. Lee3

1: Center for Natural Resources, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, New
Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, United States boufadel@gmail.com; http://nrdp.njit.edu
2: Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, Miami, FL, United States
3: Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Dartmouth, NS, Canada

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 Motivation

1. Study the transport of oil droplets

under breaking wave in a small
scale
2. Understand the effect of inertia in
the transport of oil droplets
3. Study the role of air bubbles and
vortices in the transport of oil
droplets
4. Investigate the intrusion depth,
mass entrainment and resurfacing
of oil droplets DWH Oil Spill 2010

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Methodology

Computational Fluid Wave Hydrodynamics

Dynamics - FLUENT – Velocity & Vorticity

Input Data

Lagrangian Transport of
Particle Tracking Oil Droplets

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Computational Fluid Dynamics
• Reynold average Navier-Stokes (RANS) equation
ui  u u  P    u u j  
 0, and   i  u j i    
 t    t   i     fi
xi  x j  xi x j  x
 j xi  

• Turbulent closure – RNG K-epsilon (Yakhot 1992)

 k     k 
    ku j    
 k        Gk  
 t t  x j 
t
 x j 


         2
 
 t x  uj  
      t    C1 Gk  C2   R
 j  x j  x j  k k

• Volume of fluid (VOF) method

VF  0 if  x, z   the primary phase  air 
 
VF  x, t   0  VF  1 if  x, z     the interface  VFn     VFn v n   0
 t
VF  1 if  x, z   the secondary phase  water 

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Lagrangian Particle Tracking
• The equation of motion
3 f  Du du d 
   md  m f  g
d
md  u d   md CD  u  u d  u  u d  CM m f  
dt 4 d Dd  Dt dt 
Buoyancy force Fb
Drag force Fd Added mass force Fa


  f Dd3CL  u  u d   ω 
8
Lift force Fl

 24 1  0.15 Re0.687  Re  1000 CM  0.5


r
 f u  u d Dd 
CD   Re r
r
, Re  

r
f  C  0.1
0.44 Re r  1000  L
(Schiller-Naumann 1935)

• Physical properties
 d  866 kg / m3  f  1  VF   a  VF  w
d  1.15e  4 Ns / m 2  f  1  VF  a  VF  w

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 Simulation Setup
• Wave breaker generated using dispersive focusing

• 151,500 elements in a rectangular domain 15 X 2 m

• Particle tracking simulation, seven Groups of Oil

Droplets: 50, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500 and 600-µm

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Wave Breaking Simulation – Volume Fraction

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Oil Transport

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Spatial Distribution of Oil Droplets (t = 15.2 s)

100 µm 200 µm 300 µm

400 µm 500 µm 600 µm

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Mass Entrainment (t = 15.2 s)

• 300 µm droplets has the maximum mass entrainment, while the

600-µm droplets has the minimum.
• Mass entrainment of 50, 100 and 200-µm droplets are close

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Bubbles cause resurfacing of oil droplets 100 µm

100 µm

t=15.2s t=15.3s

600 µm

t=15.2s t=15.3s

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The Role of Vortices

t=14.9s t=15.0s
600 µm
400 µm

200 µm

300 µm

t=15.1s t=15.2s

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Future: Combine droplet breakup (using VDROP)
with transport

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Conclusion
1. Transport of oil droplets following a breaker was investigated
numerically. The effects of droplet mass and inertia were included.
2. The depth of entrainment was largest for the 300 µm droplets,
which was due to the fact that their size placed them in near-zero
vorticity zones where the movement was downward.
3. Air pockets played a major role in entraining water back to the
surface, which carried droplets (especially smaller ones) with them
to the surface.

Oil droplets transport under breaking waves: Eulerian RANS

combined with Lagrangian particle tracking, F Cui, M. C. Boufadel,
X. Geng, F. Gao, L. Zhao, T. King, K. Lee (In Preparation)

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