Hydrodynamic Behaviors of Aquaculture Net Cages After the Successive Mooring Lines Failure

This paper aims to study the successive mooring line failure (also known as the domino effect) and the collision between floating collars for aquaculture net cages subjected to currents. The numerical model of this study is developed based on the Morison equation and the lumped-mass scheme in the time domain. This model is then applied to see if the domino effect of moorings will happen after releasing the anchor point #1 on the upstream side. In this study, we adopt four different current speeds (0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 m/s) and three different safety factors (SF, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0) settings to calculate the number of mooring failures, and to see whether it will cause floating collars collision. The results show that in the case of the SF is 2.0, the domino effect will not be triggered, and the floating collar collision will not occur. When the SF is 1.5, and the current speed is up to 1.0 m/s or higher, only the two anchor points on the upstream side will fail and no collision will occur. However, if the SF is not considered (that is, 1.0), the domino effect will occur under all the four current speeds, and the floating collar collision will all occur. Therefore, we suggest that in order to avoid the domino effect of the mooring system of aquaculture net cages from currents, the SF of the mooring system design must be at least 2 times.