Model tests and full-scale sea trials for drag force and deformation of a marine aquaculture net cage

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the hydrodynamic characteristics of marine aquaculture net cages used for farming silver salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch). Two sets of experiments were conducted: model-scale testing, which was used to measure the drag force and deformation of a model net cage at different current velocities, and full-scale testing, which involved a sea trial at a silver salmon farm site. In the sea trial, an acoustic wave and current meter was deployed to record the current velocities around the net cage, and the cage deformation was estimated from the several vertical positions of net using 13 depth sensors. The precision of estimating the cage deformation using only the depth information was evaluated by comparing the estimated cage deformation with that determined from the images in model-scale testing. Comparing the model-scale and full-scale testing results showed that only the bottom netting was found to be deformed under lower water currents. The trends observed for the drag force, cage deformation, and cross-section area estimated from the depth data in full-scale testing were generally consistent with those converted from the model-scale testing using Tauti's similarity law. However, the drag force values of a full-scale net cage converted from the model-scale testing were higher than those estimated from the depth data in the full-scale testing. In contrast, the converted cross-sectional areas from model-scale testing were smaller than the estimated values in full-scale testing. In future, the cage deformation should be examined under higher current velocities, and the drag force should be measured in the full-scale testing to validate the results of the model-scale testing and the hydrodynamic model.