TracOrigin；

What it does

Enhanced oil tanker spill response integrates AI-powered machinery to contain spills, safeguard ecosystems, recover oil, and gather real-time data – boosting efficiency, modernizing protocols, and accelerating sustainability initiatives.

Your inspiration

There is still a lot of room for development in the emergency response system for oil tanker spills. The emergency response system for oil spills on oil tankers is divided into five stages: discovering and reporting accidents, initial emergency response, expert group decision-making, handling spilled oil, and response completion. Through the analysis of multiple real handling cases both domestically and internationally, the initial emergency response stage is relatively isolated, with weak continuity with adjacent stages, limited consideration of factors, and primitive handling methods. Most of the operations are manual

How it works

The system is divided into two main parts: smart hardware and a backend system. The smart hardware is deployed during the initial response phase to comprehensively control the extent of deterioration, laying the foundation for subsequent processing, with coordinated performance. This hardware device consists of four modules: ①Oil Spill Containment Module:** Utilizes automatically deployable inflatable oil containment booms to rapidly curb the spread of spilled oil. ②Wildlife Protection Module:** Employs high-frequency sounds, noise, and lights generated by ultrasonic devices to deter animals, thereby achieving the goal of driving them away from the affected area. ③Oil Recovery Module:** Applies centrifugal separation technology. Leveraging the difference in density between oil and water, it causes the high-speed rotating oil-water mixture to generate different centrifugal forces, separating the oil from the water. ④Spill Data Acquisition Module:**

Design process

In the initial response phase, the choice of treatment methods must adhere to the principle of not interfering with expert judgment and decision-making, striving to minimize harm to the greatest extent possible. Currently, the existing treatment methods primarily rely on manual operations, lacking the integration of modern automated and intelligent equipment. At the 'human' level, due to the complexity of the marine environment, the diversity of oil spill types and properties, the limitations of treatment technologies, and constraints on human and material resources, the efficiency of manual oil spill cleanup is often low. At the 'environmental' level, the improvements achievable with current methods tend to be superficial. Furthermore, current treatment solutions lack comprehensive consideration of factors. They mostly focus on environmental pollution, resource recovery, and human health, while neglecting concerns about biodiversity and the health and safety of animal life. Issues also include fragmented stages, weak correlation with preceding and subsequent processes, and a lack of systemic integration. The actual measures taken during the initial response phase fail to effectively support the subsequent expert decision-making stage.

How it is different

Period More Focused: Identifying design opportunities within the response process, concentrating on the critical window of the initial emergency response phase to fill the gap in this field. Technology More Mature: Leveraging emerging intelligent technologies—such as centrifugal oil separation, ultrasonic bird deterrence, inflatable boom towing deployment, and ultraviolet spectrophotometry—to equip marine oil spill response teams with professional, efficient, and advanced cleanup capabilities. This streamlines non-essential procedures and enhances coordination between stages. High Degree of Automation: Reduces human intervention, lowering financial and health burdens with minimal human input.

Future plans

The choice of shipping methods determines that oil tanker spills cannot be fundamentally eliminated in the short term. Consequently, the development of oil spill emergency response systems must continuously evolve alongside technological advancements. It is our hope that this design, as a conceptual proposal, will inspire further innovation and contribute to the future development of digital-intelligent emergency response systems. Through iterative refinement and technological breakthroughs, we aim to apply this design concept to the management of real-world incidents.

Awards

第七届全国大学生工业设计大赛优秀奖