Fluidodinâmica da dispersão de óleo a partir de vazamento em riser submarino tipo catenária: análise de plumas multifásicas.

Abstract

The leak of toxic fluids in submarine pipes due to corrosion, erosion or failures in the structure, generally lead to extensive damage to marine life, human health and natural resources. When occurs an accidental leak, a quick and adequate response is needed to reduce the environmental consequences. Therefore, understand, for example, the behavior of leaked oil plume enables the determination of the oil plume path and the dispersion of the same in the sea current and like this propose techniques and/or technologies to eliminate or minimize the damage caused by the leak. In this sense, it was proposed a study of the behavior of plume and its dispersion, adopting an EulerianEulerian approach. It was used a representative mathematical model of the fluid dynamics of an oil plume originated from leak at riser in catenary format. It was adopted a two-phase flow (Free Surface Model), isothermal and turbulent (k-ε standard model) to solve the mass and momentum conservation equations using ANSYS CFX® v.15. The results of the pressure, velocity and volumetric fraction fields, and the volumetric fraction profiles allowed the plume behavior assessment and dispersal at sea. Also it was observed that the plume reaches the sea surface when adopted high velocities of oil leak and low velocities of sea current. For the cases in which the oil density is higher, there was lateral subsurface scattering. For the cases with higher velocity of the oil jet and lower velocity of the sea water, in the arrival of the oil to the surface it was observed that there was horizontal scattering upstream and downstream of the direction of flow. Moreover, depending on conditions of the leak velocity, of the sea current and of the density difference was noticed a tendency of the plume not reach the sea surface.