A NUMERICAL PARAMETER STUDY ON CURRENT FORCES ON CIRCULAR AQUACULTURE NET CAGES

The focus in this paper is on current forces on circular aquaculture nets, and how they vary with different parameters. The main parameters are current velocity and profile, solidity ratio of the net, sinker weights and net depth. The drag force on the net is calculated by a newly developed screen type force model. A subset of the calculations are validated by recent experimental data. The presented results are meant to represent a basis for discussing how current loads on a net cage vary with different environmental and strucural parameters. Scaling effects are discussed.