2004 Volume 20 Pages 1247-1252
A vacuum suction oil skimming system is investigated. Several types of suction inlets are experimentally studied with small-sized models. Their suction performances are measured in terms of liquid suction rates, oil and water fraction, pressure gradient and liquid hold-up in a vertical suction pipe in various simulated conditions. In the experiments, W/O emulsified heavy oil, whose viscosity is about 300, 000m Pa·s, is used. The results show that the vacuum suction is a potentially suitable measure for skimming spilled oil from sea surface since it has even better performance on a wavy sea surface than on a calm surface. A large-sized oil suction experiment is also conducted and its results are compared to those of the small-sized experiments to discuss the scale effects. The comparison provides a basic design strategy for a real-sized onboard oil recovery system which an oil recovery vessel will be equipped with.
