Journal Article

Model Developing for Simulation of Multidroplet Dynamics in Water-in-Oil Emulsions under the Action of Electric Field

Kozlov, A S, Vasilkov, S A

2025

Overview

Accurate modeling of emulsion behavior in electric fields is essential to understand the electric-field-assisted water removal from crude oil. While most models focus on droplet pairs using various methods or on the entire emulsion using population balance models (PBM), the present work develops an intermediate model that uses the discrete element method (DEM) to calculate the trajectories of many droplets and the collision statistics within an emulsion. This intermediate model is necessary both for prioritizing studies of pairwise interactions and for calculating collision frequencies for PBM in the future. In this study, a preliminary version of the model was implemented that takes into account dipole-dipole interactions between droplets and their coalescence. The problem of trajectory divergence was addressed and it was demonstrated that the accuracy of the model can be assessed by analyzing the changes in the statistical distributions of the angles between the centerline connecting the colliding droplets and the electric field direction. In addition, the obtained statistics on collision parameters can be used for a more detailed study of pair interactions of droplets in an electric field.

• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Subject: Collision parameters / Dipole interactions / Discrete element method / Droplets / Electric fields / Emulsions / Population balance models / Statistical distributions