SeaFisher—A Submersible High-Density Polyethylene Offshore Fish Pen

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Wang, Chien-Ming
Chu, Yun-Il
Baumeister, Joerg
Zhang, Hong
Qiao, Yi-Ping
Karampour, Hassan
Jeng, Dong-Sheng
Savage, Leigh
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2023
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Abstract

Moving offshore for fish farming poses challenges due to the more energetic sea environment. In this paper, a novel offshore fish pen design named SeaFisher has been proposed. The SeaFisher comprises modular cubic pens that are assembled to form a large 2 × n array offshore fish pen. Its frame structure is made from HDPE, making it flexible and durable against the harsh sea environment. Specially tailored connection brackets and connector pods are designed to assemble bundles of HDPE pipes forming the SeaFisher structure. The SeaFisher is moored using a single point mooring to minimize environmental and collision loads, and for improved waste dispersal. More importantly, the SeaFisher possesses ballast tubes positioned on the top surface to allow it to submerge to a desired water depth to dodge the strong surface waves during severe weather events. This paper presents the engineering design details and hydroelastic analysis of the SeaFisher. Based on a hydrostatic analysis, suitable materials were chosen for the various components of the SeaFisher, and the components were appropriately sized up. By using the software AquaSim v.2.17.3, the SeaFisher’s hydroelastic responses under different sea-state conditions were investigated. It is found that the designed SeaFisher structure and mooring system are adequate with respect to strength and stiffness for the considered sea-state conditions of up to 8 m significant wave height and 0.8 m/s current speed. It is expected that the SeaFisher will be a game changer for offshore fish farming due to its cost-effectiveness and ability to survive in severe storms.

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Journal of Marine Science and Engineering

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11

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9

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© 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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Fisheries sciences

Physical geography and environmental geoscience

Maritime engineering

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Wang, C-M; Chu, Y-I; Baumeister, J; Zhang, H; Qiao, Y-P; Karampour, H; Jeng, D-S; Savage, L, SeaFisher—A Submersible High-Density Polyethylene Offshore Fish Pen, Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, 11 (9), pp. 1795

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