In Situ Burn Research

The purpose of Sweet Spot in Burning Emulsions project is to study how emulsions break and boil during in situ burning (ISB), which is a multi-physics process that includes radiative and convective heat transfer to the slick, any mechanical work that is driving emulsion formation, hydrocarbon and water evaporation, and internal heat transfer as the water either flash evaporates or separates and sinks. Previous work under OSRR 1085 resulted in a potential trend indicating an increase in burning efficiency in emulsions with 20% water content.

This latest research initiative on Flame Refluxing technology endeavors to advance the technology readiness towards commercialization (TRL 9) by testing floating Flame Refluxers™ in a controlled-oil spill in an offshore environment. The target burning rate per unit area is 2 to 5 times baseline values with an improvement in emissions (30 - 60% reduction in CO/CO2 ratio) that will reduce black smoke during combustion.

This project will conduct field trials of in situ burns (ISB) to calibrate the NOAA's HYSPLIT air trajectory model by conducting multiple crude oil burns at the Poker Flat Research Range (PFRR) operated by the University of Alaska, Fairbanks with oil handling support by Alaska Clean Seas.

The objective of this final phase of research is to transition the Technology Readiness Level of a low-emission, low-pressure atomization and combustor system for emulsified crude oil from 4 to 8 by developing and refining the performance of a half-scale or full-scale flow blurring atomizer spray burner so that the system design can be transferred to a manufacturer.

The Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research and Development (ORD) will peform real-time air emissions and residue testing on two BSEE-sponsored, outdoor in situ burn tests at the Army Corp of Engineer's Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab (CRREL) in New Hampshire. ORD will assess emission and residue to characterize the combustion efficiency. ORD will also assess emissions on an additional BSEE OSRR project at CRREL and a crude oil combustion study at the Naval Research Laboratory's (NRL) Chesapeake Beach Detachment.

BSEE will participate in a Joint Industry Project with the Prince William Sound Oil Spill Recovery Institute (OSRI) and ExxonMobil to design, develop, and test a spill response system for a single manned helicopter and/or several robotic helicopters. This spill response system can jointly apply chemical herders to a spill and ignite the oil once it has been corralled. This project will

A workshop is being developed to discuss impacts of oil spills on shorelines. The workshop will bring together Subject Matter Experts (SME) from the spill response community, academia, and industry for the exchange of ideas and the exploration of the current state of the science of oil spill research. Traditional oil and gas exploration and production (E&P) as well as renewable energy (RE) will be explored. The results of this workshop will help guide BSEE Oil Spill Response Research (OSRR) to develop relevant Research and Technologies (R&T) in fulfillment of BSEE's mission.

The objective of this project is to enhance an in situ burn (ISB) quantification system previously developed under OSRR Project #1074. The system is designed to provide near real-time quantification of volumes of crude oil being burned thus yielding burn rate and efficiency. A series of small- and large-scale test burns will be conducted to acquire data for algorithms to accurately measure and quantify burning volumes and efficiencies to advance the state of maturity of the technology for commercialization.

The objectives of this project are to 1) characterize the ideal configurations and parameters of fire whirl formation; 2) characterize the effects and burning/combustion efficiencies on emissions from different fire whirl configurations, fuels, and slick thicknesses; 3) further understand the fundamental physics contributing to enhancement in the combustion efficiency of fire whirls verses pool fires; and 4) develop a scaled prototype fire whirl generator for use in a large-scale outdoor test facility.

BSEE is pursuing a line of research and plans to conduct full-scale tests of modified boom configurations in the Canadian Multi-Partner Research Initiative Offshore Burn Experiments (MOBE) planned for the summer of 2022. The primary goal of the research is to determine if alternate boom geometries will result in a reduction of particulate matter (PM) and trace pollutants in the plume and reduced amounts of burn residue.