NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION ON THE HYDRODYNAMIC CHARACTERISTICS IN THE TANK OF AQUACULTURE VESSEL

At present, deep-sea aquaculture faces numerous challenges, encompassing issues such as water body eutrophication, fish lice diseases, and adverse sea conditions that cause damage to aquaculture equipment. In response to these challenges, a mobile aquaculture vessel equipped with recirculating aquaculture systems has emerged as a preferred solution. These systems demonstrate precise water control capabilities, ensuring optimal aquaculture water quality and mitigating the occurrence of fish diseases. In contrast to deep-sea aquaculture cages, the hull structure of aquaculture vessels exhibits superior resilience to extreme sea conditions, thereby ensuring the safety of aquaculture operations. The hydrodynamic characteristics of aquaculture tanks play a pivotal role in the growth and health of fish. The aquaculture vessel, representing an emerging innovation, currently lacks a robust foundation of hydrodynamic knowledge to effectively support aquaculture production. In this paper hydrodynamic characteristics of aquaculture tanks are investigated based on the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method, focusing on param such as flow velocity, vortices, and flow field uniformity. The analysis reveals the existence of low flow velocity zones and dead zones in the near-corner wall region of the octagonal aquaculture tank. In the region above water depth = -3 m, a noticeable velocity gradient and lower uniformity are observed. Notably, an increase in inlet flow velocity results in an improvement in the flow field uniformity in this region.