EAGER: Fire Whirls on Water: Clean and Efficient Hydrocarbon Combustion

1507623(奥兰)该项目建议调查在清理海上溢油时使用火旋风的可能性，因为人们认为，火旋风是一种更快、更清洁的燃烧石油的方法，否则会蔓延到大片地区。从拟议的研究中获得的理解可以帮助减少石油泄漏对环境的影响，石油泄漏对人类是灾难性的，生活在这些地区的脆弱野生动物和生态系统受到很大影响。因此，它具有巨大的社会经济影响。研究生助理将在主要调查人员的监督下参与研究。海上溢油不仅对生态造成影响，而且可能引发大规模火灾，进而可能造成财产和生命损失，构成非常危险的局面。减少石油(主要是碳氢化合物)泄漏引发的火灾的危险的一种方法是，正如私人投资公司所建议的那样，使用火焰漩涡。由于空气的漩涡运动产生向心力，并向漩涡的轴线流动，水面上的空气运动将阻止石油进一步扩散到更大的区域。同时，燃烧和相关浮力效应的增加进一步增强了漩涡运动，并且在较小区域燃烧油时防止油扩散的效果被放大(同样是由于气流的向内运动)。私人投资公司建议在不同大小或区域的水域上引入溢油。在小尺度龙卷风现象中，最初会产生旋转的空气运动。实验方法包括观察和测量火焰漩涡附近的空气运动以及水面上和水面下的水运动，即防止油扩散的机理。这一结果有可能增加我们对火灾漩涡和水中燃烧的理解，以确保安全和进行泄漏补救。在许多不同的尺度上，这些实验将提供对控制石油扩散和公开水域中石油和其他碳氢化合物燃烧的控制参数的洞察，这是以前从未探索过的。

1507623(Oran)This project proposes to investigate the potential of fire whirls in cleaning up oil spill on water, as they are believe to be faster, cleaner methods of burning up oil that would otherwise spread over large areas. The understanding gained from the proposed study can help to reduce the environmental impact of an oil spill, which is disastrous for people and fragile wildlife and ecosystems living in these areas are greatly affected. As such it has a tremendous socio-economic impact. Graduate student assistants will be involved in the research under the supervision of the principal investigators. Oil spill over water poses a very dangerous situation, not only in its impact on ecology but also in its potential of causing large scale fires, which in turn are capable of causing losses in properties and human lives. One method of mitigating the hazards associated with fires over oil (mainly hydrocarbons) spill is, as the PIs propose, is to use fire swirls. Because the swirling motion of the air generate a centripetal force and flow toward the axis of the whirl, the air motion over the water surface would prevent the oil from further spreading into larger areas. In the meantime, the burning and the associated increase in the buoyancy effect further enhances the whirl motion and the effect of preventing oil spread while burning the oil in a smaller area (again, due to the inward motion of the air flow) is amplified. The PIs propose to introduce spills over water over a range of sizes, or areas. The swirling air motion will be initially generated, as in small scale tornado-like phenomenon. The experimental approach includes observing and measuring the air motion both near the fire whirl and water motion on and beneath the surface of water, i.e., the mechanism of prevention of oil spread. The results possess a potential to increase our understanding of both fire whirls and burning over water for safety and spill remediation. Over many different scales, these experiments will provide insight into the controlling parameters that govern both oil spread and combustion of oil and other hydrocarbons in open water which has not been explored before.