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Updated: Feb 17, 2026

Microfluidic Devices for Characterizing Pore-scale Event Processes in Porous Media for Oil Recovery Applications
Published on: January 16, 2018
Modeling characteristic size distribution parameters of oil droplets generated by breaking waves
Arsalan Mostaani1, Tor Nordam2, Emlyn J Davies3
1Department of Physics, NTNU, Høgskoleringen 5, Trondheim, 7034, Norway.
None:
Natural dispersion of oil is investigated experimentally in a wave flume. Three different nominal oil thicknesses, and three wave heights, are used, with each experiment repeated several times. Droplets are recorded at high frequency, using the SilCam, a telecentric camera system designed to measure oil droplet size distributions, and to discriminate between droplets and bubbles. Size distributions are recorded at two different sampling locations, over a time of about 80 s following the wave breaking. The results indicate that the volume-based median droplet size, d50v, has a clear dependence on oil slick thickness. We discuss implications for oil spill modeling, compare to existing droplet size models, and apply a new non-dimensional empirical function to model the early (transient) size distribution following a breaking wave, for use in operational oil spill modeling.
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