Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is a widely used technique in environmental problems. Our expertise in numerical methods and in computational techniques has helped us to formulate and solve some interesting environmental problems where the fluid flow is the main actor. Usually these problems are related with dispersion of contaminants either in water (rivers, sea...) or in the atmosphere. As examples, we can name the studies of the dispersion of chemicals released from concentrated sources (i.e. smokestack) in the atmospheric boundary layer or the prediction of the evolution of accidental oil spills.

Special attention has been taken in the analysis of water pollution. ECoMMFiT has worked in the studies related to the accident of the Prestige tanker (Spain, 2002) analyzing the temperature evolution of the fuel in the sunken tanks. ECoMMFiT has also developed a computer code (SIMOIL) to simulate the time-space evolution of oil spills in marine environment of arbitrary and complex geometry. It is applicable to gravity-viscosity regimes, i.e. up to 1 week for large spills, and takes into account dispersion caused by wind, tides and currents, spreading and evaporation, as well as accumulation and dispersion along the shorelines.

Some of the environmental projects in which ECoMMFiT has applied its knowledge are:

• Simulation of dispersion of reacting flow in atmospheric boundary layer


• Particle dispersion in atmosphere models


• Study of flow in a waste combustion reactor


• Hydrodynamic study of Alfacs Bay (Ebro Delta, Spain)


• Prediction of organic compound air/water transfer in ponds


• Simulation of salinity gradient in sea surface due to the discharge of hot fluid close to the coast


• Simulation of evolution of an oil spill


• Fuel cooling in the tanks of sunken oil tanker Prestige


• Assessment of air quality in the vicinity of a point of emission


• Study of the air quality in a geographically limited zone using measurements from automatic an manual control stations

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