Numerical investigation of flow characteristics in a rearing tank aboard an aquaculture vessel

Abstract

The mobile aquaculture vessel is expected to be a sustainable way for future nutritious food due to its mobility, potential production rates and environment preservation. The flow field in fish rearing tanks aboard the vessel is a prerequisite for fish welfare. In this paper, the flow field characteristics in an aquaculture tank was numerically investigated. The fish fitting guaranteed rate (FFGR) based on the statistical cumulative distribution probability is presented and used to analyze water flow. A typical rolling condition of an aquaculture tank from the analyses of response amplitude operator (RAO) was used for the flow field analysis. The wavelet and fast Fourier transformation on the mass averaged mean kinetic energy reveals a steady-state of the rolling flow condition after 100 oscillating periods. Statistical analysis on the water velocity indicates that the period-averaged FFGR increases with velocity. Based on the FFGR, the flow field of aquaculture vessel in rolling oscillations are evaluated for six fish species, including Atlantic salmon and Pseudosciaena crocea.