The Plume Calculation Team (PCT) conducted high quality work within a very short period of time, in spite of needing to use less than ideal quality videos provided by British Petroleum (BP), especially those made before the cutoff of the riser above the Blow Out Preventer (BOP) on June 3, 2010. There are at least two valid approaches for estimating the oil discharge coming out from the Deepwater Horizon broken pipeline and its riser, using BP videotapes. One method is to estimate the exit velocity directly with the use of the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). The second method is to use a buoyant plume analysis to determine the exit velocity. The PCT used both of these methods.
Revised: December 11, 2010 |
Published: June 1, 2010