Numerical simulation of oil spill in ocean

The spreading of oil in an open ocean may cause serious damage to a marine environmental system. thus,an accurate prediction of oil spill is very important to minimize coastal damage due to unexpected oil spill accident. the movement of oil may be represented with a numerical model that solves an advection-diffusion-reaction equation with a proper numerical scheme. in this study,the spilled oil dispersion model has been established in consideration of tide and tidal currents simultaneously. the velocity components in the advection-diffusion-reaction equation are obtained from the shallow-water equations. the accuracy of the model is verified by applying it to a simple but significant problem. the results produced by the model agree with corresponding analytical solutions and field-observed data. the model is then applied to predict the spreading of an oil spill in a real coastal environment. © 2012 yong-sik cho et al.