Rise and Dissolution Modeling of CO_2 Droplet in the Ocean

A numerical approach is proposed to study the behavior of a natural carbon dioxide (CO2) droplet leaked from the seafloor. Motion and deformation of the droplet at the initial stage are simulated by a lattice Boltzmann multi-phase method to obtain the terminal velocity. The whole process of droplet rise and dissolution is modeled by a simplified analytical method. The in-situ experiment case on a natural CO2 droplet at the Okinawa Trough (Shitashima, et al.) is studied by using the proposed numerical model. Numerical experiments show strong dependency between the terminal velocity and the droplet density. The phenomena obtained in the on-sea observation are discussed by the present numerical study. (Received October 26, 2012; accepted December 12, 2012)