Model Test for Determination of Hydrodynamic Ocean Coeficient for Design of Aquaculture Mooring System for Oceanic Macroalgae Farming

摘要

Ocean and Coastal farming has potential economic benefits as a source of sustainable. Prototype plantations have been deployed in coastal areas and therefore are competing for limited space with other shoreside activities such as recreation and industry. If seaweed can be cultivated in relatively deeper waters away from populated areas, production may be expanded using larger areas not presently exploited for other purposes. Prototype systems aquaculture plantations have so far relied on ad hoc, field developed mooring systems, rather than engineering design principles. Such systems may not be sufficiently reliable for deepwater deployments, where repairs are more costly and resources are scarce. A quickest way to obtain design loadings for seaweed would be to carry out model tests on some available seaweed samples.The main difficulty is that the flow kinematics (fluid velocities/accelerations) that can be produced in the available model basin, at the Marine lab of the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia in Johor Bahru, where the tests are to be carried out, are suitable only at smaller scale. This paper describes the model tests and analysis used to develop the loads needed so that the mooring system for the aquaculture system can be designed based on methods like those used for offshore structures.