Oil leakage from river-crossing pipelines can cause rapid upward migration and surface spreading of oil, posing serious threats to aquatic ecosystems, freshwater resources, and emergency response activities. To support environmental prevention and pollution control, this study developed a Riemann-SPH oil-water two phase numerical model to predict the migration and spreading of oil released from submerged pipelines in rivers. The model was validated against physical model experiments under quiescent water conditions by comparing the rise height of the oil plume and the spreading length of the surface oil slick. Parametric simulations were then conducted to evaluate the effects of leakage discharge, hydrodynamic conditions, and oil density on pollution migration behaviour. The results show that larger leakage velocity and leak-orifice diameter accelerate the upward migration of oil and enlarge the spreading extent after surfacing. Ambient current delays surfacing, shifts the oil plume downstream, and increases the drift velocity of the surface oil slick, whereas wave action enhances interface disturbance and horizontal transport. Lower-density oil rises faster and generally produces a larger spreading extent. The proposed model provides a physically based and computationally efficient tool for rapid first-stage assessment of submerged oil migration and spreading in idealized river environments.
Gu et al. (Fri,) studied this question.