Computer Model Developed by Clarkson University Professor Helps Predict Oil Flow in Gulf of Mexico Spill

Posted on August 5, 2010 in General News,

A computer model developed by a Clarkson University professor is being used to help federal officials predict the flow of oil and natural gas released by the recent oil platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

Poojitha Yapa, a professor of civil and environmental engineering in Clarkson’s Wallace H. Coulter School of Engineering, is advising officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on how to adapt his Comprehensive Deepwater Oil and Gas (CDOG) blowout model to predict where the natural gas and oil released by the explosion will end up.

“In this case, this is an emergency, so they don’t have time to use all the complex features in the model,” Yapa said, “and sometimes in emergencies you’re working with very limited data.”

Yapa said he developed the model over the course of six to eight years with the help of a series of graduate students. “It is very complex. It can simulate all kinds of different scenarios,” he says.

Read More: http://www.clarkson.edu/view.php?id=2440