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Energy
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State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, Sichuan 610500, China
State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan 610065, China
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 19 June 2013
Received in revised form
10 October 2013
Accepted 14 October 2013
Available online 7 November 2013
The objective of the present paper is to study the oil ows from damaged submarine pipelines with
different leak sizes. CFD (computational uid dynamic) simulations with FLUENT software are carried out
to investigate the process of oil spill from submarine pipeline to free surface. Effects of oil density, oil
leaking rate, leak size and water velocity on the oil spill process are examined. High density, slow leaking,
small leak size or fast current brings about long time for oil reaching the maximum horizontal migrate
distance when it reaches surface. And this maximum horizontal migrate distance increases with the
increase of leak size or water velocity, while increases with the decrease of leaking rate. Then, the
dimensionless time required for oil droplets which have the longest horizontal migrate distance when
they reach the sea surface and the dimensionless longest horizontal distance the droplets migrate when
they reach the sea surface are analyzed and the tting formulas are obtained. Only the formula for the
dimensionless longest horizontal distance versus dimensionless density meets the polynomial, other ve
formulas meet the natural logarithm distribution. Using the formulas we can obtain when and where to
see oil reaching the sea surface, and conduct rapid response. Finally, the maximum horizontal migration
distance of oil at certain time is predicted, and a forecasting model is proposed. The using methods of
tting formulas and the forecasting model are shown in the paper by examples. These calculated results
provide useful guidance to place the oil containment boom.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Oil spill
Submarine pipeline
VOF (volume of uid)
CFD (computational uid dynamics)
1. Introduction
Washout and perforation failures are usually present in oil
submarine pipelines due to corrosion or ow erosion. Then oil spills
into marine environment from the leak, causing extensive damage
to marine life, human health, and natural resources [1]. As the
accidental oil leakages in Gulf of Mexico, about twenty thousand
barrels of oil were released into the sea everyday, resulting in
ecological devastation in adjacent sea area. Similar oil spill accidents occurred at platform B and C of the Penglai 19-3 oileld
located in Bohai Sea [2]. About 700 barrels of oil and 2500 barrels of
mineral oil-based drilling mud were released. Moreover, Bohai Sea
is a semi-enclosed shallow sea with average water depth of 18 m,
making the risk relatively high. Given the frequent occurrence of oil
spills, it has been a matter of constant concern from the viewpoints
of environmental and social disasters.
* Corresponding author. State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology
and Exploitation, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, Sichuan 610500,
China. Tel.: 86 28 83032206.
E-mail address: ticky863@126.com (H. Zhu).
0360-5442/$ e see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2013.10.037
888
are assumed. The ows of uids are governed by the RANS (Reynolds-Averaged-Navier-Stokes) equations, including continuity and
momentum equations written as follows [11e13]:
vui
0
vxi
(1)
0 0
vui uj
vui vui uj
1 vp
y V2 u i
gi
r vxi
vt
vxj
vxj
(2)
where ui represents instantaneous velocity component in i direction, for example u and v are velocity in x and y direction, respectively, while u0i is uctuation velocity component in i direction, xi is
space coordinate in i direction, gi is gravitational acceleration in i
direction, t is time, p is pressure and r and y are density and kinematic viscosity, respectively.
The VOF approach is based on the solution of one momentum equation for the mixture of the phases, and one
equation for the volume fraction of uid. In this study, volume
of uid functions Fw and Fo are introduced to dene the water
region and the oil region, respectively. The physical meaning of
the F function is the fractional volume of a cell occupied by the
liquid phase [14,15]. For example, a unit vale of Fw corresponds
to a cell full of water, while a zero value indicates that the cell
contains no water. The fraction functions Fw and Fo are described
as follows:
Fw
Vw
Vc
(3)
Fo
Vo
Vc
(4)
0
vt
vx
vy
(5)
0
vt
vx
vy
(6)
r 1 Fw Fo ra Fw rw Fo ro
(7)
y 1 Fw Fo ya Fw yw Fo yo
(8)
vrk vrkui
v
vt
vxi
vxj
"
mt vk
Gk Gb r
sk vxj
(9)
vr vrui
v
vt
vxi
vxj
"
mt v
2
p
rC1 S rC2
s vxj
k y
C1 1 C3 Gb
k
(10)
where,
C1 max 0:43;
h S
h5
(12)
1=2
S 2Sij $Sij
Sij
1 vui vuj
2 vxj vxi
Gk ru0i u0j
(13)
!
vuj
vxi
(14)
(15)
m t vr
Prt rvxi
(16)
k2
(17)
Gb gi
mt rCm
(11)
889
890
Fig. 1. Sketch of the geometry and numerical grid for computational domain: (a) overall view of the computational domain and boundary conditions; (b) grid distribution of
computational domain.
At the initial time, the lower area is lled with water and the
upper area is lled with air. Still water surface is assumed at the
interface of the two regions. And the pressure in air region is
dened as 0 Pa, meaning the atmospheric pressure.
In simulations, densities of air and water are seemed constant as
1.225 kg/m3 and 1025 kg/m3, respectively. While the density of oil
Table 1
Simulation cases.
Case
Oil density
(kg/m3)
The maximum
water velocity
(m/s)
Oil leaking
rate (m/s)
Diameter of
leak (m)
Volume ux
of leaking oil
(m3/s)
Flux multiple
(comparing
with case 12)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
780
810
840
870
900
930
960
870
870
870
870
870
870
870
870
870
870
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.04
0.07
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
1
3
4
5
2
2
2
2
2
2
0.05
0.05
0.05
0.05
0.05
0.05
0.05
0.05
0.05
0.05
0.05
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.05
0.05
0.003925
0.003925
0.003925
0.003925
0.003925
0.003925
0.003925
0.0019625
0.0058875
0.00785
0.0098125
0.000157
0.000628
0.001413
0.002512
0.003925
0.003925
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
12.5
37.5
50
62.5
1
4
9
16
25
25
891
Fig. 2. The process of oil spill from submarine pipeline to free surface at standard case.
water velocity are the four variables. For ow rate and leak size are
related to each other, we have set the minimum volume ux occurs
in case 12 (oil leaking rate 2 m/s and leak size 0.01 m). And
volume uxes in others cases are some times more than the minimum volume ux, as listed in Table 1. Therefore, a wide range of
volume ux of leaking oil has been considered in this paper.
3. Numerical results and discussion
3.1. Standard case
We adopt case 4 (as shown in Table 1) as the standard case. Fig. 2
presents the volume fraction of water at different times, corresponding to the process of oil spill from submarine pipeline to free
surface. It is indicated 39 s are required for oil droplets which have the
longest horizontal migrate distance when they reach the sea surface.
As Fig. 2 shows, continuous oil ow stream presents just
releasing from the leakage hole with the height of about 3 m.
However, it is tore apart at a certain depth by current. Under the
joint action of gravity, inertia force, buoyancy and shear stress, oil
spill appears in the form of droplets or droplet groups in most of the
computational region. With the increase in rising height, oil
droplets become more dispersed. At t 39 s, the horizontal span of
oil droplets is about 3.36 times longer than that at t 15 s.
Oil droplets move downstream under the action of water
owing from the left boundary. However, this phenomenon is not
obvious near the seabed for the small water velocity. With the
decrease in water depth, the horizontal migrate distance has a
signicant increase. The reason is that high-speed water has a
greater horizontal shear stress exerting on spilled oil and transfers
greater kinetic energy to oil ow, resulting in a longer horizontal
migrate. Therefore, the shear distribution current plays an important role in oil migration. We should consider the actual water
velocity distribution to conduct a relative accurate prediction.
From the Fig. 2 we can see that the rst oil droplet reaching
the free surface is not the one which has the longest horizontal
migrate distance. This main reason is that oil droplets have
different sizes and the sizes are variable with time due to the
dispersion and combining of oil droplets under the joint action of
gravity, inertia force, buoyancy and shear stress. In the process of
oil spill from the leak to free surface, the oil droplet which reaches the free surface rstly has larger buoyancy, and then the
furthest-migration droplet receives a greater shearing action of
current. The time required for the rst oil droplet reaching the
free surface is less than 35 s. While the droplet which has the
longest horizontal migrate distance reaches the surface at
t 39 s. And the longest horizontal migrate distance is 16.7 m
(18.5 m 1.8 m, the horizontal distance from the inlet to pipe
leak). At this time, the horizontal and vertical displacement ratio
of this droplet is 1.201.
Since the oil spill is subjected to the joint action of gravity,
inertia force, buoyancy and shear stress, in the later stage, we have
892
Fig. 3. The process of oil spill from submarine pipeline to free surface at different oil densities: (a) ro 780 kg/m3; (b) ro 870 kg/m3; (c) ro 960 kg/m3.
893
Fig. 4. The process of oil spill from submarine pipeline to free surface at different oil leaking rates: (a) vo 1 m/s; (b) vo 3 m/s; (c) vo 5 m/s.
changed the oil density, oil leaking rate, leaking size and water
velocity to explore their inuences.
3.2. Effect of oil density
In this section, to study the effect of oil density on the length of
time for oil to reach the sea-surface and the distance for oil moving
downstream, simulations are conducted by changing the oil density
while leaving other parameters same as those in the standard case.
Fig. 3 illustrates the process of oil spill from submarine pipeline to
free surface at three different oil densities. It can be seen that the
larger the oil density, the longer the time required for oil to reach
free surface. For ro 960 kg/m3, the required time for the
maximum horizontal migration is about 1.84 times as long as that
894
Fig. 5. The process of oil spill from submarine pipeline to free surface at different water velocities: (a) vwmax 0.04 m/s; (b) vwmax 0.07 m/s; (c) vwmax 0.1 m/s.
horizontal migration distance when the oil droplet reaches the free
surface is a very vital parameter. This horizontal migration distance
for ro 960 kg/m3 is 17.1 m (18.9 m 1.8 m), a little shorter than that
when oil density is 780 kg/m3 which is 18 m (19.8 m 1.8 m). The
main cause of this result is that low density oil droplets rise faster
and enter into high-speed water zone earlier, leading to shearing
action of current acting on oil earlier. However, the difference in the
maximum horizontal migration distance is little. Therefore, light oil
Fig. 6. The process of oil spill from submarine pipeline to free surface at different oil leak sizes: (a) d 0.01 m; (b) d 0.03 m; (c) d 0.05 m.
895
896
can reach surface quickly, requiring short response times, while the
location be laid with oil containment boom to control oil dispersal is
basically the same for different-density oil ow.
3.3. Effect of oil leaking rate
Oil leaking rate is one of the key factors which impacts the
diffusion of oil spill. Fig. 4 depicts the process of oil spill from
submarine pipeline to free surface at different oil leaking rates. At
small leaking rate (vo 1 m/s), 79 s is required for oil ow to reach
the maximum horizontal migrate distance when it reaches the free
surface, and the maximum horizontal migration distance is arrived
at 16.4 m (18.2 m minus 1.8 m). However, for higher leaking rate
(vo 5 m/s), just 15 s is needed for oil to reach the maximum
horizontal migrate distance when it reaches the free surface. It can
be explained that high-speed leaking oil has more ascending kinetic energy. From Fig. 4, we can also see more dispersed oil
droplets present in computational domain at high leaking rate. The
reason is that the total amount of released oil is larger as the mass
rate of oil is larger (For incompressible uid, mass ow rate increases as the increase in velocity). Thus, in order to reduce the
environmental consequences, a relatively fast response is required
for high-speed leaking oil, and an adequate response should be
considered to solve a large number of oil spills.
3.4. Effect of water velocity
Current as a carrier plays a crucial role in the migration of the oil
ow. Therefore, in this section, we have changed the water velocity
to nd its effect on oil spill. The processes of oil spill from submarine pipeline to free surface at different water velocities are shown
in Fig. 5. The larger the water velocity, the more obvious the trajectory of oil ow skewed to the downstream. The reason is that
high-speed water exerts more shear stress on oil droplets and
transfers more kinetic energy to oil droplets. The maximum horizontal migrate distance for vwmax 0.04 m/s is 14.2 m (16 m minus
1.8 m), 0.9 m less than that for vwmax 0.07 m/s and 2.5 m less than
that for vwmax 0.1 m/s.
Fig. 7. Dimensionless time required for oil droplets which have the longest horizontal migrate distance when they reach the sea surface (vot/H) versus ro/rw, 10vwmax/vo and 100 d/H.
897
slower the oil leaking, or the smaller the leak size, the longer the
dimensionless oil spill time is. All the three parameters meet the
natural logarithm distribution well, and the adjust R-squares are all
larger than 0.98. The three tting formulas are as follows:
10vwmax/vo and 100 d/H, they meet the natural logarithm distribution well, and the adjust R-squares are all larger than 0.99. While
for ro/rw, polynomial is the most appropriate one. These three
tting formulas are as follows:
r
vo t
1
6:14146 106 exp o $
4:2567
rw 0:07163
H
(18)
2
r
r
Lf
194:556 o 107:6361 o
118:7261
rw
rw
D
(22)
vo t
10vwmax
1
3:40596 exp
5:68636
$
H
0:13146
vo
(19)
Lf
10vwmax
1
30:4548
19:738 exp
$
0:25236
D
vo
(23)
Lf
100d
1
$
31:1406
21:4234 exp
H
0:09199
D
(24)
vo t
100d
1
3:41601 exp
$
5:43198
H
H
0:12289
(20)
where t is the time required for oil droplets which have the longest
horizontal migrate distance when they reach the sea surface.
Taking Eq. (18) for example, if the actual parameters are the
same as that used in this paper such as H 13.9 m and
rw 1025 kg/m3, this equation can be simplied as:
(21)
(25)
Based on Eq. (25), if the oil density is set as 850 kg/m3, the
maximum horizontal migrate distance when oil reaches the free
surface can be calculated as 18.69 m. For different oil leaking rates,
water velocities or leak sizes, we can also predict the maximum
horizontal migrate distance by solving Eq. (23) and Eq. (24). The
above tting equations may provide some useful information for
government and oil business to adopt rapid response in case oil
spill occurs.
3.7. Prediction of the maximum horizontal migration distance
In most cases, the leak in submarine pipeline is far away from
platforms and shore. Thus, a few hours would be taken for rescue
ships to reach the accident location. When the rescue ships arrive,
how long the horizontal migration distance is the major concern. In
Fig. 8. The dimensionless longest horizontal distance the droplets migrate when they reach the sea surface (Lf/D) versus ro/rw, 10vwmax/vo and 100 d/H.
898
L Lf atr tvwmax
(26)
(4) The process of oil spill consists of rising process and drifting
process. For drifting process, the main motion of oil droplets
is moving downstream along the free surface, and water is
acting as a carrier. A forecasting model, L Lf a (tr t)
vwmax, is proposed to calculate the maximum horizontal
migration distance of oil at certain time. For standard case, its
value would be 876.02 m if 2 h are needed for rescue ships to
reach the accident location.
Acknowledgments
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