Study on the Material Mechanical Properties of Aquaculture Net Cage

Abstract

Due to the typhoon impacts, aquaculture net cages may be exposed to the risk of structural failure as a far-reaching aquaculture equipment. In addition, the fatigue problem of key components due to long-term marine alternating loads can not be ignored. The method is developed independently on processing samples of cage for testing its performance parameters, among which the fatigue Wohler curve is S = -1.022ln (N) + 22.201. By adapting the following methods: Mechanical test, Equivalent load finite element simulation and Full field finite element simulation respectively is verified each other, and the error is less than 5%. The key nodes of the stress concentration of the floating frame are mainly the welding point, the mooring point and the edge area of the I-beam frame at both sides. The damage of the cage which caused by tensile and bending loads should be considered at the same time. And the tensile strength 22.12 MPa and the bending strength 30.58 MPa could be taken as the evaluation standard for the elastic to plastic deformation. Structural fracture occurs when the elongation at break exceeds 340.18%. The fatigue of the cage is mainly because the stress is much greater than the fatigue limit 3.38 MPa. The material model test combined with structural mechanics simulation provides the basis for guiding the structural optimization design of the cage.