Simulation of crude oil slick on ice infested sea water

Abstract

A three-dimensional numerical model based on the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method is utilized to model such interactions. The effects from air and water are well captured using suitable force components and without explicit inclusion of air and water phases. This reduces the four-phase SPH model into a two-phase model, significantly reducing computational costs and potentially enabling the use of this model for large-scale simulations. This study includes two simulation domain size. The results show that the remained oil slick in the icy domain is completely depend on properties of different crude oils and current velocity. Then we performed a numerical experiment to study the effects of different ice parameters (e.g., ice concentration, floe shape) on the drift of fresh and weathered oil. Ice fields with the size of 750 m $\times$ 1350 m are used in the experiment. The ice concentration varies between 30%, 50% and 70%. Quadrilateral and circular ice floes, in addition to real-shape floes digitize from an aerial image are all used in the experiment. Oil spills of 1257 $m^3$ are released in the open water and later drift into the ice under the influence of steady current of 50 $\frac{\mathrm{cm}}{s}$. The type of spilled crude oil varies from fresh Troll B, Troll B 250 °C, and Troll B 250 °C and 75%emuls. The behavior of oil spills while crossing through the ice infested area are investigated by measuring the thickness of crude oil, the average and maximum distance traveled by crude oil.