Numerical Study on the Leakage and Diffusion of Insoluble Dangerous Chemicals from Ship in Inland River

Abstract

Considering the accidents of ships for dangerous chemicals transportation in inland rivers, a numerical method for the simulation of the leakage and diffusion processes of dangerous chemicals in inland rivers is proposed in this paper. Geographic information, such as rivers and buildings in the model, is obtained through Google Earth and structures of rivers and buildings are described by Auto CAD. In addition, the Fluent is adopted to simulate the leakage and diffusion processes of the dangerous chemicals where the standard k-ε model is used to calculate the turbulent flow. Considering the interaction between chemicals and water, the VOF method is used to describe the leakage, drift and diffusion process of dangerous chemicals groups on the water surface. Taking a section of the Yangtze River as an example, the leakage and diffusion processes from a ship carrying 3,000 tons of low-solubility and low-volatile dangerous chemicals are studied, and the characteristics of leakage and diffusion are analyzed in detail. During the simulation, the area of the maximum group of leaked dangerous chemicals reaches up to about 1800 m2 , and the number reaches up to 45. Furthermore, the influence of density, viscosity, water velocity and leakage velocity on the leakage and diffusion processes is investigated in this paper.