Migration of oil in artificial islands and behaviour of oil-contaminated sand-steel interfaces.

Abstract

Exploration wells have been drilled in the Canadian Beaufort Sea, using artificial islands. Basically, an artificial island consists of a caisson retained structure made of steel or concrete and filled with a sand core. These structures are often built on top of a sand berm overlying sea bed soils. It has been acknowledged that during exploration of oil, it is possible that oil could spill on top of the sand filled core if a blowout occurs. The oil industry claimed that the oil would be contained in the soil mass during a blowout. This led to the motivation of the present study. The first objective of this research is to investigate experimentally whether the oil would migrate downward in the soil mass and eventually continue upward and contaminate the water surrounding the artificial island. The second objective is to determine the response of the oil contaminated interface between the soil and the structural material to the applied load. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)