Instability study of oil slicks contained by a single boom

An instability study of oil slick contained by a single boom was conducted. From the numerical simulations, it was predicted that in the cases with low oil viscosities, small-size vortices dominated in the oil slicks, which consumed the kinetic energy transported from the water current and made the oil slicks more stable. In the cases with high oil viscosities, the large oscillations caused the oil slicks to become shorter and thicker. The oil-water interface shape was substantially influenced by the surface tension. However, surface tension might be negligible in the drainage failure and the critical accumulation failure. The depth of the water affected the oil containment significantly when the current depth was < 10 times of the boom's draft. The stability of the oil slick movement was very sensitive to the Froude number. With the Froude number increasing, the coefficient of collected oil dropped sharply at a certain Froude number, the critical value. As an instability criterion, the critical reduced gravity was more appropriate than the critical Froude number. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 23rd Arctic and Marine Oil Spill Program, AMOP Technical Seminar (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada 6/14-16/2000).