The Effect of Waves on the Oil Slick at a Retention Boom

Abstract

In the previous paper on this subject it was found that the oil-water interface at the retention boom becomes unstable under certain conditions permitting an oil escape under the boom. In the absence of waves, the experimental results were in fair agreement with predictions; but, when the waves were present, the instability occurred much earlier than predicted. In this paper the behavior of waves is studied both analytically and experimentally. It is found that the waves consist of a combination of stationary and progressive waves which is confirmed by the experiment, but the oil thickness variation on waves is found from experiment to be much greater than predicted. With certain modifications to the theory, the predicted onset of instability falls closely to experimental value.