Design and Analysis of an Innovative Concept for Submerging Open-Sea Aquaculture System

This paper presents an innovative design of a system of cages for an open-sea aquaculture. The concept is based on an existing successful concept of a system, which is flexible, submersible, and has a single point mooring. The new design, besides being much larger, presents a new concept of stabilizing the system at the submerged state. This new system is preliminarily designed by a simplified method, and then analyzed by the AQUASIM finite elements software system. The results of the nonlinear hydroelastic analysis confirm that the preliminary design by simplified calculations is adequate to the design conditions. The new concept of stabilizing the system at the submerged state is studied by simulations of four configurations, where the optimal is selected. The simulations show that the cages always retain above 70% of the volume. The paper presents valuable information of a practical design, such as the method of the analysis, the environmental design criteria, the scantlings of the structure, and the obtained usage factors at extreme sea conditions. The system was recently being constructed, launched, and anchored at open-sea offshore Ashdod. It is now tested at the sea before cultivation of fishes.