Modelling the oil spill transport in inland waterways based on experimental study

Abstract

Oil spills occurring either in oceans or inland waterways may cause serious economic losses and ecological damage. Previous studies pertaining to oil spills and their consequences are primarily based on marine environments, whereas few have focused on oil spills occurring in inland waterways characterised by pronounced flow advection transport effects, which differ from the marine environment. A generalised flume experiment is performed to investigate the spread and transport of oil spills, and the relationships between the area and thickness of oil slick over time are analysed parametrically. An oil spill model combined with a depth-integrated two-dimensional non-uniform flow model, which is suitable for modelling inland waterways based on the Lagrangian method, is established; it is calibrated and verified using measured data from the flume experiment. The model is applied to three scenarios on the Luoqi reach of the Yangtze River, and spilled oil drifting trajectory maps are obtained and analysed considering the field wind parameters. The results show that the drift distance of the oil slick in the inland waterway is primarily controlled by the flow velocity with effects of advection transport; however, the oil spill trajectory spreads toward the wind direction when the flow velocity is relatively small compared with the wind speed. The results of this study serve as a reference for predicting the spread and transport of oil spills in inland waterways.

Keywords: 2D flow model; Flume experiment; Inland waterway; Oil contamination; Oil particles; Oil spill model.