The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement's (BSEE) Oil Spill Response Research (OSRR) program has completed its review of an important new research project on burning oil in ice cavities and published the final results. The research project, funded by the bureau and completed by Worcester Polytechnic Institute in a lab, led to the discovery that the average burning rate is greater in an ice cavity than in a similarly-sized vessel or a pan.
The objective of this study was to assess the In-situ burn efficiency of oil spills in icy conditions and explore oil spill burning on ice. The fundamental problem of burning oil in an ice cavity is new to the fire science community, as such there were no prior experiments on the subject. This study included a series of experiments that were conducted to develop an understanding of the burning of crude oil in ice cavities. Alaska North Slope crude oil (~1.5 cm thick) was placed within ice cavities (5 – 100 cm wide and 6 - 25 cm high). It was found that because of the cavity expansion the average mass transfer of crude oil in the ice cavity is greater than in a similar-sized vessel or pan. The scientific problem examined in this research involves new fundamental studies about the interaction of a pool of oil burning in an ice matrix. This interaction represents an innovative aspect of this work that had not been studied before.
The study has helped the bureau quantify the combustion efficiency and point of extinction for liquid fuel spills in icy conditions. Additional information on the study including the report can be found here.
Through BSEE's Oil Spill Response Research program, the bureau maintains a comprehensive research program dedicated to improving oil spill response options. The major focus of the program is to improve the methods and technologies used for oil spill detection, containment, treatment, recovery and cleanup. The bureau's research program is a cooperative effort bringing together funding and expertise from research partners in government agencies, academia, industry and the international community. More information on BSEE's Oil Spill Response Research program can be found here.
