Recirculating Aquaculture System Design and Water Treatment Analysis based on CFD Simulation

As demands for efficient and echo-friendly production of marine products increase, smart aquaculture based on information and communication technology (ICT) has become a promising trend. The smart aquaculture is expected to control fundamental farm environment variables including water temperature and dissolved oxygen (DO) levels with less human intervention. A recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) is required for the smart aquaculture which utilizes a purification tank to reuse water drained from the water tank while blocking the external environment. Elaborate water treatment should be considered to properly operate RAS. However, analyzing the water treatment performance is a challenging issue because fish farm circumstance continuously changes and recursively affects water fluidity. To handle this issue, we introduce computational fluid dynamics (CFD) aided water treatment analysis including water fluidity and the solid particles removal efficiency. We adopt RAS parameters widely used in the real aquaculture field to better reflect the real situation. The simulation results provide several indicators for users to check performance metrics when planning to select appropriate RAS without actually using it which costs a lot to operate.