Research On Leakage Prevention And Effect Of Sloshing On Anti-leakage Mechanism Of Double Hull Structure

With the improvement of Maritime environment protection consciousness from thewhole society, a series of laws and regulations have been carried out to prevent and reducethe oil leakage accidents in the sea. And the more safety design standard is appealed to theoil tanker. Since the leakage accident of Exxon Valdez oil tanker happened in the1990s, theexisting tankers have transformed from single hull to double hull. Recently, the double hullstructure is proved to be one of the most effective ways to reduce and prevent oil leakageaccident in the sea. It has aroused the attentions from all over the world, due to the accidentoccurs with huge damage on the maritime environment occasionally.The existing relevant research results mainly focus on the finial state of the leakageprocess, including the behavior of spilling and the volume of oil flowing into the sea, withthe method of theoretical analysis, computer simulation and model experiments. So theexisting results can not well reveal the mechanism of oil leakage form the damaged oiltanker and how the double hull structure to capture the oil from the liquid cargo tank,particularly the impact factor on it. In this paper, the mechanism of oil leakage process isstudied; meanwhile, the impact factor is also researched with the method of CFD andmodel test.A typical side cargo tank is selected in this paper from the VLCC, which has L-shapedouble hull structure. The main work include the model test and numerical simulation ofthe process of oil leakage from the damaged double hull tank, the effect of initial waterlayer on the process, the impact of sloshing on the process provided by the CFD.Combined with numerical simulation and model test, the mechanism of oil leakageprocess is illustrated. Meanwhile, the effect of oil viscosity, initial water layer thickness indouble hull space and the sloshing movement on the ability of the double hull space tocapture the oil spilling from the liquid cargo tank is also explored in this paper. The resultsprovided by this paper can well reveal the mechanism of oil leakage process from thedouble hull tanker damaged on the bottom, particularity the effect of impact factormentioned above on this mechanism. It is benefit for the aim of prevention and reductionoil flowing in the sea. Meanwhile, the reference of further research related to the dynamicprocess of oil leakage can be acquired from this paper.