Smoke Plume Trajectory From In Situ Burning of Crude Oil: Complex Terrain Modeling.
Smoke Plume Trajectory From In Situ Burning of Crude
Oil: Complex Terrain Modeling.
(1419 K)
McGrattan, K. B.
NIST SP 995; Volume 2; March 2003.
Environment Canada. Arctic and Marine Oilspill Program
(AMOP) Technical Seminar, 20th. Volume 2. Proceedings.
June 11-13, 1997, Alberta, Canada, Environment Canada,
Ottawa, Ontario, 723-734 pp, 1997.
Keywords:
crude oil; oil spills; in situ combustion; pool fires;
smoke; fire plumes; smoke movement; in situ burning
Abstract:
As part of the process of obtaining preapproval for the
use of in situ burning in the event of an oil spill,
numerical models have been used to predict the
concentration of particulate matter or other combustion
products downwind of the fire. The NIST model, ALOFT (A
Large Outdoor Fire plume Trajectory), is based on the
conservation equations that govern the introduction of
hot gases and particulate matter from a large fire into
the atmosphere. Because it is based on the fundamental
equations rather than empirical correlations,
simulations of burning in areas of very mountainous
terrain, like the southern Alaskan coast, can be handled
very easily using digitized terrain data at roughly 100
m resolution. The model has been applied to regions in
Alaska, and predictions of distances from the fire where
combustion product concentrations fall below ambient air
quality standards have been made.
Building and Fire Research Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899