Oil Containment by Boom in Waves and Wind. I: Numerical Model

Abstract

The effectiveness of a boom is associated with the hydrodynamics in the vicinity of the oil slick that it is attempting to contain, especially under open-sea conditions. A comprehensive investigation of oil containment is provided under various current, wave, and wind conditions. In this paper, a local two-phase nonlinear hydrodynamic numerical model is developed to simulate oil containment by a fixed boom under open-sea conditions. The shape of an oil slick is a function of time, and unstable waves may develop along the oil-water interfacial boundary. This paper describes a simulation of the behavior of the oil slick and deals with important interfacial boundary conditions. A nonhydrostatic pressure is introduced to accommodate the complicated local flow near the oil slick and a successive overrelaxation method is used to solve the pressure equation. A comparison is made of the oil slick shape with and without the hydrostatic pressure assumption. Some simple simulations of free-surface elevations under a number of wave conditions are performed to verify the numerical model. The computed results are in general agreement with those obtained from previous experiments.