Abstract
This paper presents hydroelastic analysis of a novel submersible circular platform for farming red seaweeds such as Gracilaria dura, Kappahycus alvarezii and Eucheuma. The platform comprises a circular HDPE collar, a system of mooring lines and buoys, and seaweed tube nets. The platform can be submerged during storms to avoid strong surface wave action by filling the collars’ compartments with water and be raised to the surface by injecting compressed air into the collars’ compartments to displace the water. The platform is modelled by using the software AquaSim, where the collar is modelled by using beam elements, and mooring lines are modelled as truss elements. The wave load acting on the platform is estimated by using the Morison equation. Hydroelastic responses of the platform in the floating and submerged modes are investigated. It is found that seaweed tube nets may increase mooring forces significantly and hence the drag forces due to the tube nets cannot be neglected. In addition, by submerging the seaweed platform to an appropriate depth, the deformation of the platform, the von Mises stress and mooring line forces can be reduced considerably as demonstrated herein. Future studies will focus on physical model tests to confirm these findings obtained from numerical simulations.
