Half Life: the amount of time it takes for one half of a given amount of material to decay The way to compute the replacement rate required to maintain a constant volume with a given half-life is r = ln(2) / h where ln is natural log, h is the half life and r is the replacement rate required to maintain a steady state. So, in order to maintain a given volume of oil with a half life of three days and a continuous rate of replenishment, the effective daily rate must be ln(2) / 3 or 23.1% of the total volume. Some rates for reference: half life replacement rate 2 34.7% 3 23.1% 4 17.3% 5 13.9% 6 11.6% |
Oil Spill Reporting >