Design Rules for Marine Fish Farms in Norway: Calculation of the Structural Response of Such Flexible Structures to Verify Structural Integrity

As of April 1^st 2004 all new marine fish farms in Norway need to be certified to comply with technical criteria in a new Norwegian Standard, NS 9415 (NAS, 2003). This paper gives an overview of the design rules. Marine fish farms have a strongly flexible hydroelastic behavior. The design rules have revealed the need for calculations to verify the structural capacity of such facilities. This paper describes how loads and response are derived on the fish farm structures. In order to account for the large geometrical deflections occurring in fish farm components such as the net and anchor cables which interacts with stiffer structural components, time domain simulations analysis of such facilities is required to assess the structural integrity. This paper report a proposed practical calculation method and results from model tests have been carried out to validate calculations. Good correspondence was shown. Additionally some applications are described.