Abstract
Offshore aquaculture production technology production is promising and sustainable; it has the potential for food production security related to the global demand, circular economy biomass feed stocks, and protect and thereby preserve fragile ecosystems in the future. The major challenges are that the structure and species cultivation are subject to extreme ocean environmental forces, and lack of adequate system design to mitigate this risk, but also resists the forces at the rough sea itself. There is a need to develop robust cost-effective technologies and tools to ensure sustainability in offshore aquaculture cultivation of aquaculture species. Simulation modelling and advanced risk analysis of offshore technologies are conducted to introduce an efficient and improved method of cultivation that will meet challenging safety requirements and improve production. Submersible tube is a sustainable solution for offshore aquaculture. Simulation software Orcaflex is used for numerical modelling the design of the submersible system for marine aquaculture cultivation, that can withstand harsh ocean environmental force. The system comprises of a submersible tube connected through pulley arrangement to counterweight buoyancy devise, the tube can be controlled hydraulically inner tubes that can be filled with air or water. The system configuration is set up in the marine environment and is simulated with North Sea metocean data of designated farm sites. First principle modelling to determine equivalent Morison force of the system components, that is suitable for typical system design and analysis, is carried out for required for validation of the simulation to optimal performance of the system. The estimated load parameter is used in size the design of a culture system that will reduce the risk of system failure, potential loss of crop, and costly repairs, or replacement of the system components. This work presents the response of the system under the specified weather conditions of the North Sea. The work also presents the analysis of hydrodynamic loads, under varying waves and currents acting on the cultivation system and species. The model accounts for various environmental factors that may impacts the systems performance Figure 1 shows the simulation model of submerged system and Figure 2 presents the effective tension at the end of the tube. Figure 3 shows tubes buoyancy and pulley effort needed.
Funding Details
This work is funded by the Alfred Wegener Institute’s INSPIRES programme and the resources of the Chair of Applied Marine Biology at the University of Applied Sciences Bremerhaven.