Solution of the Equation for Oil Spills Spreading over the Sea Surface by the Characteristic Method

Abstract

A model of oil spill spreading described by partial differential equations based on the balance of the forces acting on an axisymmetric slick is proposed. The aim of the work is to construct a numerical solution method capable of correctly describing the motion of the spill boundary. The originality of the proposed approach lies in the fact that, on the one hand, it offers a technique for the numerical solution of the spill spread equation on the basis of a characteristic method that can describe the motion of the spill boundary and, on the other hand, the numerical solution is shown to agree with Fay’s formulas based on observations.