Hydrodynamic analysis of fishing farms

Resumen

There is no question about the relevancy of the blue growth concept, as a long term strategy to support sustainable growth in the marine sector. One of the sectors that has a higher potential for sustainable growth in this field is the aquaculture. This work is focused on the development of a time domain hydrodynamic solver for analysis and assessment of floating fishing farms. The paper also presents a demonstration case based on typical configuration of fishing farms used in the Mediterranean Sea. It is composed by a set of individual circular fishing cages. Several arrangements of fishing cages are also analysed subject to wind waves and currents. Different fishing cages are used in the performed simulations: circular, square and hexagonal.The influence of several configurations on fishing farm mooring behaviour in different sea states is studied. The analysis is focused in the dynamic behaviour of fishing cages. In particular mean drift and slow drift motions, including the second order-effects, will be studied, since they have important role on the behaviour of fishing farm in seaway. The results lead to final discussion about the best performance in fishing farm layout.