Richard J. Seymour
Performance Evaluation of Containment Booms (MSRC & TGLO sponsorship)
M.H. Kim and Peter Johnson (Associate PI's), Sri Muralidharan and Hae-Jin Choi (MS students), Benedikte Haugene (UG student)
Evaluation of containment booms is highly empirical, requiring expensive field testing because no generic design relationships have been developed and because no numerical models for the highly non-linear behavior of booms in winds, waves and currents are available.
The study of the responses of slim, flexible members to complex loadings is related to a number of research activities within the fluid/structures thrust area, particularly the study of risers. The ability to produce oil and gas economically in deep water depends to some degree upon the ability to protect the environment from spills. The OTRC model basin, one of our primary test beds is a major capability utilized in this research.
Large scale generic boom designs, with variable bouyancy, skirt lengths and other design parameters will be subjected to a variety of scale currents and sea states. Rather than using oil in the model basin, objective performance criteria will be developed and measured, such as effective skirt draft, rate of overtopping, etc. Empirical relationships will be developed from these results to predict boom performance in various loading conditions based upon design parameters such as bouyancy/weight ratios and geometry considerations such as sail height, water plane area, etc.. The first year will involve longitudinally rigid boom sections and 2-D waves. In the second year, flexible booms and 3-D waves will be investigated. Numerical modeling of a generic boom has been initiated and it is anticipated that this capability can be refined using the data sets obtained here and extended in follow-on efforts into a useful design tool.
The Marine Spill Response Corporation has conducted a number of full scale tests towing booms in relatively calm water that can be used to validate the results of this effort. SIT conducted similar experiments with flexible booms.
Boom design remains an art. Yet booms are critical to almost every spill response scenario. By providing objective criteria for guiding boom design and selection, the reliability of equipment in the response inventory can be significantly improved. If effective numerical models are obtained, design optimization at very low cost becomes a reality and the capabilities of booms may possibly be substantially improved.
September 1994 to December 1996.
The products of this research will include a protocol for boom model testing. as well as a total of 72 data sets of the performance of differing boom configurations in a wide variety of current and sea states. Design guides relating performance and boom configuration will be developed and published as an OTRC Technical Report. The summary of this project was presented in ISOPE '96 and will be published in the Journal of Ocean Engineering, 1997.
MSRC engineers will work closely with the investigators in the development of the testing protocol and in the empirically-derived design/performance guides. A paper pertaining to the experiment and numerical modeling was presented at ISOPE '96 Conference. A journal paper will be published in the Journal of Ocean Engineering, 1997.