Hydrodynamic responses of longline aquaculture facility with lantern nets in waves

Abstract

To prevent occurrences of structure failure, it is essential to study the mooring line tension and motions of the longline aquaculture facilities with lantern nets. This study describes a physical model experiment that attempts to determine an optimal structure design. The experiment investigated effects of three facility design factors on the mooring line tension and movement of the lantern net and mainline: incident wave angles, lantern net layout depths, and lantern net layout forms (horizontal arrangement/staggered arrangement). The experimental results indicate that the mooring line tension decreases with increasing wave periods. The amplitude and variation of windward mooring line tension are much larger and more complex than that of leeward. The vertical movement amplitude and variation range of the lantern net and mainline are much larger than that of horizontal movement amplitude. Decreasing the incident wave angle, deepening the arrangement depth of lantern nets or adopting staggered arrangement can reduce the mooring line tension in the case of longer wave period. The analysis indicates that increasing the layout depths of the lantern nets and applying the staggered layout form are beneficial in reducing the vertical motion amplitude and elliptical excursion of the mainline. The incident wave angle has a relatively weak effect on the motion of the main and lantern net. Increasing the layout depths of lantern nets will reduce the horizontal and vertical movement amplitudes and elliptical excursion of the lantern nets. Changing the layout forms of the lantern nets from horizontal to staggered will increase the horizontal motion amplitude and decrease the vertical motion amplitude and elliptical excursion of the lantern nets.