Behavior of Rising Droplets and Bubbles: Impact on the Physics of Deep-Sea Blowouts and Oil Fate

The rise behavior of oil droplets and natural gas bubbles is of major importance for understanding the physical behavior of dispersed oil in the aftermath of a deep-sea blowout. It is also indispensable for the development and adjustment of oil fate modeling tools that estimate the subsea distribution of oil masses. So far, to estimate the oil distribution throughout the water column and the expected surfacing times, a couple of well-known correlations for the calculation of the rise velocities of single particles with fluidic interfaces in stagnant media are available from process engineering applications. Besides the physical properties of live oil under environmental conditions, the size of the gas bubbles and oil droplets are the most crucial parameters that determine rise velocities