Work

Numerical investigations on the oil intercepting performance of area-source pneumatic booms via a coupled DPM and VOF method

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Pneumatic booms offer distinct advantages over traditional structural barriers: not affecting the local vessel navigation and hydrological environment, enhanced mobility and maneuverability, etc. However, their oil interception performance remains insufficiently understood especially for the area-source ones. This study employs a well-validated numerical model based on the coupled VOF and DPM framework, to systematically investigate the plume evolution and oil containment efficiency of near-surface area-source bubble curtains under various aquatic scenarios. Numerical simulations reveal that the critical air supplying parameters(air flow rate, supplying pipeline number, pipeline spacing) have obvious influences on the plume development and the oil intercepting performance, and an optimal air supplying configuration can be achieved for low and relatively high airflow rate respectively under quiescent water condition. With the optimal designs, the demanding airflow rates for successful oil containment under different ambient flow velocities and wave parameters are analyzed. These findings highlight the effects of area-source pneumatic booms in oil containment and can provide valuable estimation for oil spill containment in practical engineering.

Source: Marine Pollution Bulletin

DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2025.118636

Authors: Xing Feng, Jiahui Su, Yifan Liu, Siyuan Liu, Liankun Liu, Shitao Peng

Institutions: Dalian Maritime University, Tianjin Research Institute of Water Transport Engineering, Ministry of Transport

Language: English

Topic: Oil Spill Detection and Mitigation

Subfield: Pollution

Field: Environmental Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,740

Funders: National Natural Science Foundation of China, National Key Research and Development Program of China