Hydrodynamics and Capture Efficiency of Plastic Cleanup Booms: Part II, 2D Vertical Capture Efficiency and CFD Validation
Conference with peer reviewed proceedings
February 2017, ASME International Conference on Offshore Mechanics & Arctic Engineering
Abstract
To mitigate the growing impact of plastic pollution on marine ecosystems and global economy, The Ocean Cleanup (TOC) Foundation develops technologies to extract, prevent, and intercept plastic debris from coastal and oceanic environments. The core technology being optimized is the use of floating booms placed perpendicular to the main ocean plastic flow so it can concentrate plastic debris to a point where it can be extracted, shipped and processed in a cost-effective manner. To investigate the capture efficiency of such a system, TOC conducted model scaled tests at the Dutch research institute MARIN. The objective of this paper is to present those tests along with the assessment of an hydrodynamic model and a CFD model to predict the dynamics of a rigid boom on one hand and the validation of this CFD model to predict the capture efficiency of such a boom.