APPLICATION OF GAP AND ROD NON-LINEAR FINITE ELEMENTS TO DETERMINATION OF WAVE INDUCED LOADS ACTING ON OPEN SEA FISH FARMS. IN: MARINE TECHNOLOGY V

The progress of mariculture in open sea is slowed down by several problems, such as: strong motions and loads of cages and nets; problems with regular supply of fish food; problems with monitoring the fish growth and health; and the necessity of using expensive and sophisticated means protecting the cages against poaching and collisions with ships. The fish cages in open sea farms are a high technology product, the result of many years of research carried out with use of computer aided design. The floating structures discussed in this paper will be applied in industrial mariculture of such sea fish as salmon or cod. The paper includes structural analysis and assessment of a set composed of 6 cages. Special rod-type elements have been used to account for nonlinear relationship of local buoyancy versus tube immersion, fully submerged cross-section area, and for effect of structure deformability to the buoyancy forces. The analysis has been made for the cage set on calm water and for steep sinusoidal wave coming from various directions. A finite element method version computer program was used for the analysis.