Numerical Hydrodynamic Investigations of a Multi-Pile-Supported Aquacultural Structure

Abstract With the continuous consumption of natural resources in the ocean, aquaculture has become a new focus in various countries and fish farming structures have developed rapidly in last decades in both nearshore and offshore regions. However, the hydrodynamic characteristics of structures which integrated aquacultural nets and other marine structures together remain unclear. Monopile-based structures are common types of fixed-bottom structures at offshore sea areas with shallow water depths where are rich in wind energy, oil and fishery resources. In order to improve the utilization efficiency of offshore structures, a multi-pile-supported aquacultural structure is proposed in the study which consists of net panels and monopiles. In this paper, a new coupling method which combined discrete-module-beam (DMB) method and lumped mass method with Screen model is proposed to obtain the hydrodynamic responses of monopiles and nets in the integrated aquacultural structure. A series of numerical calculations are carried out to investigate the hydrodynamic characteristics of pile-net structures under different regular wave conditions. The influence of net panels on the hydrodynamic characteristics of monopiles are measured and discussed. It is found that the influence of net panels on the hydrodynamic characteristics of current model is negligible. Overall, the results of this study can be used as a basis for future design and optimization of similar integrated marine structures.