In the development of sustainable offshore farming solutions for salmon aquaculture, salmon feed represents a major cost of business. Tonnes of feed per day can be delivered from feed barges to the individual pens, using sophisticated monitoring and remote feeding control systems. Salmon feed pellets are conveyed from feed barges to individual pens using High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) pipes. Current arrangements for these pipes and their connections may be unsuitable for future more exposed sites, especially in the case of bad weather. Damage to individual feed pipes and/or disorder in the feed pipe bundles may result from the greater relative movement of the different parts of the feed system, leading to substantial maintenance requirements and costs. This project aims to investigate the major aspects controlling the performance and operation of feed pipe systems for open, floating, flexible fish pen systems, with the specific objective of improving the design of feed pipe systems to be used in future high-energy sites.

Funded by the Blue Economy CRC, the proposed research project will model specific structural components of aquaculture feed pipe systems. The research aims to assess pipe system dynamics and potential maintenance requirements in high-energy hydrodynamic offshore environments. The research will focus on pipe structural behaviour, feed pipe arrangements and bundling systems, and the loads imposed by wind, waves, and currents. As a result of the research, models will be developed to help design sustainable engineering solutions for feed pipe systems to be used in future offshore salmon aquaculture.