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SUMMARY:Assessing In-Situ Burning as an Environmental Alternative for Oil 
 Spill Mitigation
DTSTART:20120228T161500
DTSTAMP:20260916T002721Z
UID:d49baad741581f70ea6c13441bf51ddb21eb038df3a1da25d2664690
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Prof. José Torero\, BRE Trust/RAEng Professor of Fire Safety 
 Engineering University of Edinburgh\, UK\nIn-situ combustion of a slick of
  oil is a controversial but commonly discussed means of mitigating the env
 ironmental impact of an oil spill. The effectiveness of this countermeasur
 e and potential environmental impact is intimately related to the burning 
 characteristics. The burning rate of a slick of oil on a water bed is char
 acterized by three distinct processes\, ignition\, flame spread and burnin
 g rate\, the first two define the potential to burn and the latter control
 s the residual amount of oil after extinction. Characterization of ignitio
 n was shown not to be sufficient to assess the potential of an oil slick t
 o burn\, thus a series of flame spread experiments were conducted to chara
 cterize minimum burning sizes that enable self sustained burning. Analytic
 al formulations for ignition and flame spread allowed extracting a series 
 of parameters that could be used as criteria to decide if burning is an op
 tion. In a similar way\, burning rate was calculated by a simple expressio
 n derived from a one-dimensional heat conduction equation. Heat feedback f
 rom the flame to the surface was assumed to be a constant fraction of the 
 total energy released by the combustion reaction. The constant fraction (X
 ) was named the burning efficiency and represents an important tool in ass
 essing the oil consumption potential of in-situ burning. Theoretical expre
 ssions were first correlated with crude oil and heating oil\, for a number
  of pool diameters and initial fuel layer thickness. Experiments were then
  conducted with emulsified and weathered crude oil. The simple analytical 
 expressions describe well the effects of pool diameter and initial fuel la
 yer thickness permitting a better observation of the effects of weathering
 \, emulsification and net heat feedback to the fuel surface.
LOCATION:GR A3 31 http://plan.epfl.ch/?room=GR%20A3%2031
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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