A Preliminary Study of a Vessel-Shaped Offshore Fish Farm Concept

Author(s):  
Lin Li ◽  
Zhiyu Jiang ◽  
Muk Chen Ong

The aquaculture industry is aiming to move fish farms from near-shore area to open seas because of many attractive advantages in the open water. However, one major challenge is to design the structure to withstand the environmental loads due to wind, waves and current. The purpose of this paper is to study a vessel-shaped fish farm concept for open sea applications. The structure includes a vessel-shaped hull, a mooring system and fish cages. The shape of the hull minimizes the wave loads coming from the bow, and the single-point mooring system is connected to the turret at the vessel bow. Such a system allows the whole fish farm to rotate freely about the turret, reduces the environmental loads on the structure and increases the spread area of fish wastes. A basic geometry of the vessel hull was considered and the hydrodynamic properties were obtained from frequency domain analysis. A preliminary mooring system was designed to avoid possible interactions with the fish cages. Time domain simulations were performed by coupling the hull with the mooring system. A simplified rigid model of the fish cages was considered. The global responses of the system and the mooring line loads were compared in various waves and current conditions. The effects due to misalignment of waves and current directions on the responses were also studied.

Author(s):  
Lin Li ◽  
Zhiyu Jiang ◽  
Andreas Vangdal Høiland ◽  
Muk Chen Ong

The aquaculture industry is aiming to move fish farms from nearshore areas to open seas because of many attractive advantages in the open water. However, one major challenge is to design the structure to withstand the environmental loads due to wind, waves, and currents. The purpose of this paper is to study a vessel-shaped fish farm concept for open sea applications. The structure includes a vessel-shaped hull, a mooring system, and fish cages. The shape of the hull minimizes the wave loads coming from the bow, and the single-point mooring system is connected to the turret at the vessel bow. Such a system allows the whole fish farm to rotate freely about the turret, reduces the environmental loads on the structure and increases the spread area of fish wastes. A basic geometry of the vessel hull was considered and the hydrodynamic properties were obtained from the frequency-domain (FD) analysis. A mooring system with six mooring lines was designed to avoid possible interactions with the fish cages. Time-domain (TD) simulations were performed by coupling the hull with the mooring system. A simplified rigid model of the fish cages was considered. The global responses of the system and the mooring line loads were compared under various wave and current conditions. The effects due to misalignment of wave and current directions on the responses were discussed. Finally, the responses using flexible and rigid net models were compared under steady current conditions.


Author(s):  
Ke Hu ◽  
Shixiao Fu ◽  
Yuwang Xu ◽  
Leixin Ma ◽  
Yifan Chen

Nowadays, marine aquaculture is playing an important role in meeting people’s ever increasing need for sea foods high in protein. The multiple fish cages are commonly used in large fish farms currently. Mooring systems in these fish cages should be strong enough to withstand extreme environmental loads. Thus, a reliable mooring system is required in designing safe structures. In this paper, a finite element model is built. The floating collar is simulated by the beam element, the twine of the net and the mooring lines are simulated by the truss elements. The geometric nonlinearity of the net model and the material nonlinearity of the mooring line are considered. In this analysis, the hydrodynamic forces estimated by Morison equations are applied to the model. The hydrodynamic response of multiple fish cages under the wave loads by considering the pretension of mooring line is carefully studied. The maximum tension in mooring lines under different wave propagation direction is also analyzed in this study.


Author(s):  
Lin Li ◽  
Zhiyu Jiang ◽  
Jungao Wang ◽  
Muk Chen Ong

A vessel-shaped fish farm concept for open sea applications has been proposed recently. The whole system consists of a vessel-shaped floater, fish cages positioned longitudinally along the floater, and a single-point mooring system. The whole system weathervanes; this feature increases the spread area for the fish waste. However, the downstream cages may experience reduced water exchange when the vessel is parallel to the currents. This situation may jeopardize the fish health. A dynamic positioning (DP) system may be necessary to improve the flow conditions. This paper investigates the misalignment angle between the heading of the vessel-shaped fish farm and the currents under combined wave and current conditions. The misalignment angle is critical for the estimation of the DP system consumption. A numerical model of the fish farm system with flexible nets is developed. Current reduction factors are included to account for the flow velocity reductions between the net panels. The heading of the system is obtained by finding the equilibrium condition of the whole system under each combined wave and current condition. An integrated method using metamodels is proposed and applied for the prediction of the misalignment angle for a reference site. The probability distribution of the misalignment angle between the vessel heading and the currents is calculated using the Kriging metamodel for the reference site. Based on the prediction, the requirement for the DP system to improve the flow condition in the fish cages is discussed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 141 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lin Li ◽  
Zhiyu Jiang ◽  
Jungao Wang ◽  
Muk Chen Ong

Recently, the concept of a vessel-shaped fish farm was proposed for open sea applications. The fish farm comprises a vessel-shaped floater, five fish cages, and a single-point mooring system. Such a system weathervanes, and this feature increases the spread area of fish waste. Still, the downstream cages may experience decreased exchange of water flow when the vessel heading is aligned with the current direction, and fish welfare may be jeopardized. To ameliorate the flow conditions, a dynamic positioning (DP) system may be required, and its power consumption should relate to the heading misalignment. This paper proposes an integrated method for predicting the heading misalignment between the vessel-shaped fish farm and the currents under combined waves and currents. A numerical model is first established for the fish farm system with flexible nets. Current reduction factors are included to address the reduction in flow velocity between net panels. The vessel heading is obtained by finding the equilibrium condition of the whole system under each combined wave and current condition. Then, the Kriging metamodel is applied to capture the relation between the misalignment angle and environmental variables, and the probability distribution of this misalignment angle is estimated for a reference site. Finally, the requirement for the DP system to improve the flow condition in the fish cages is discussed.


Author(s):  
Yuan Hongtao ◽  
Zeng Ji ◽  
Chen Gang ◽  
Mo Jian ◽  
Zhao Nan

This paper applies 3D potential theory and non-linear time domain coupled analysis method to analyze motion response of FPSO and dynamic response of mooring line of single mooring system. In addition, respectively to calculate mooring line tension of tension type and composite mooring line type and added buoy in mooring line. There the paper analyze different mooring lines to affect on the weight of single point mooring system of deepwater FPSO. Which expects to provide a theoretical basis for single point mooring system design and weight control.


2020 ◽  
Vol 90 ◽  
pp. 102075 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiao-Hua Huang ◽  
Hai-Yang Liu ◽  
Yu Hu ◽  
Tai-Ping Yuan ◽  
Qi-You Tao ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 143 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaesub Sim ◽  
Hui Cheng ◽  
Karl Gunnar Aarsæther ◽  
Lin Li ◽  
Muk Chen Ong

Abstract Aquaculture has been the world’s fastest-growing food producing method and grown to become the second-largest export industry in Norway during the past 40 years. Usually, the high-value fish such as Atlantic Salmon (Salmo Salar) is raised in a multi-cage fish farm, where the flow interactions between fish cages exist. In this study, the interactions between fish cages are implemented into the numerical program, FhSim, to investigate its influences on the responses of a multi-cage fish farm. Tensions in anchor lines, drag force, and cultivation volume of each cage in a full-scale 4 × 2 multi-cage fish farms under different flow directions are analyzed numerically. The discrepancies of the responses based on three cases, i.e., (i) without any wake effects, (ii) with only cage-to-cage wake effect, and (iii) with all the wake effects, are compared and discussed. The results indicate that neglecting the wake effects will overestimate the total drag force of the eight cages up to 128% and underestimate the total cultivation volume of the eight cages as much as 42%. This study can provide suggestions on how to consider the wake effects during the design of the multiple-cage system.


Author(s):  
Are Johan Berstad ◽  
Harald Tronstad ◽  
Stein-Arne Sivertsen ◽  
Endre Leite

A Norwegian Standard NS 9415 (NAS, 2003) has been introduced to the offshore fish farming industry in Norway. This is the first standard dealing with offshore fish farm facilities. The main objective of the standard is to reduce environmental pollution by fish escape. The work process leading to NS 9415 revealed the need for research work in several areas to enhance design criteria with the objective of having a consistent safety level through out the life cycle of a fish farm facility. This paper presents results from a government supported research project with the objective of enhancing criteria for design and operation of fish farm facilities. A case study of a fish farm facility representative for the majority of polyethylene based fish farms in Norway is presented and the sensitivity of such fish farms to variation in the mooring system is shown and discussed for design relevance. The sensitivity of net cage volume to current and weights is presented and discussed. Possible hazards from operational conditions are listed.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 83-97
Author(s):  
Hui-Min Hou ◽  
Guo-Hai Dong ◽  
Tiao-Jian Xu ◽  
Yun-Peng Zhao ◽  
Chun-Wei Bi

Abstract Investigation of the embedded chains in soil starts to play an important role in understanding the structural performance of mooring system, when the embedded anchors will be employed to sustain large loads with the gradually growth of installation depth of offshore aquaculture farm. The aim of this study is to investigate the dynamic response of mooring line considering the influence of embedded chains in clay soil for net cage system. Lumped-mass method is used to establish the numerical model for evaluating the performance of mooring line with embedded chains. To validate the numerical model, comparisons of numerical results with the analytical formulas and the experimental data are conducted. A good agreement of the profile and the tension response is obtained. Then, the effect of embedded chains on the static and dynamic response of mooring line is evaluated, and the dynamic behavior of mooring system considering embedded chains for net cage system is investigated. The results indicate that the soil resistance on embedded chains should be included to predict the mooring line development and the load on the embedded anchors in the numerical simulations. An appropriate safety factor should be included if employing the simplified model Case C at the initial design phase. And the effect of embedded chains on the holding capacity of embedded anchors in single-point mooring system for single net cage cannot be negligible during the design and operation phases. Consequently, it is profound to take into account the interaction of embedded chains and soil for accurately predicting the reliability of mooring system for fish cage.


1991 ◽  
Vol 113 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-79
Author(s):  
G. Osborne ◽  
R. Latorre

The vessel moored to a single-point mooring is subjected to the combined action of current, wind and waves. In this paper the vessel orientation and corresponding mooring line loads are examined in terms of the magnitude of the current force to the total force acting on the vessel. The results of systematic computer calculations are presented to show that there is relatively small influence when the ratio of current force to wind/wave forces is below 0.1. Graphs useful for preliminary design are introduced to illustrate this point. The estimates are compared with model test results showing reasonable agreement.


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