Abstract
For the traditional polyethylene and nylon nets, lots of studies have been carried out to study their hydrodynamic characteristics in waves and currents. However, the studies of the metal nets which also have wide application prospect in marine aquaculture are rare, especially on their performance in waves. In this study, a series of laboratory experiments are conducted to investigate the hydrodynamic characteristics of the chain-link type aluminum alloy nets. Two net panels of identical dimensions are placed in the ocean basin. They are parallel to each other, with a certain length of gap. The wave forces on the net panels under different wave heights, wave periods and immersion depths are measured. The wave elevations at different downstream positions of the nets and the wave forces on both upstream and downstream net panels are measured to investigate the shielding effects. The wave transmission coefficient and shielding coefficient of the horizontal wave force are therefore derived. The experimental results show that both two coefficients are around 1 under different wave conditions which indicates that the shielding effects of the chain-link type aluminum alloy nets can be ignored. Thereby, in the calculation of wave loads on upstream and downstream fish nets, it is reasonable to neglect the wave attenuation inside the nets.
