Eulerian large-eddy simulation of deep-water hydrocarbon plumes with multi-component gas bubble dissolution.

In deep-water oil spill accidents, the oil and natural gas released into the seawater rise as a multiphase hydrocarbon plume driven by the bubble-induced buoyancy force. Several of the dominant components of the natural gas bubbles experience considerable dissolution into the surrounding seawater in the deep-water environment, which causes the plume to lose the driving force and affect the overall plume flow dynamics. The dissolved natural gas components also disperse into the surrounding environment, imposing a great threat to the ocean ecosystem. In this study, a fast Eulerian large-eddy simulation model is developed to simulate deep-water hydrocarbon plumes with the effect of multi-component gas bubble dissolution. In the simulations, the gas and oil are released from 700m depth, and the dissolutions of methane (CH₄), ethane (C₂H₆) and propane (C₃H₈) are modeled. The dispersions of these dissolved gas components in the surrounding environment with and without a crossflow are also modeled and compared.