Views: 119 Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2023-05-17 Origin: Site
The initial design process focused on three criteria. Initially the farm must fit within the lease site, keep the gear as light as possible. Once the initial design components were specified, the farm was constructed, deployed, seeded, and assessed for biomass yield.
To fit within the lease site, the design incorporated a 122 m kelp grow line pre-tensioned with subsurface flotation at the corners with opposing anchor lines.
The kelp line was held at 2.1 m below the surface with three support structures made with off the shelf rope, PVC pipe, and lobster floats at east, middle and west locations. Anchor lines extended to the seafloor at an angle of 32° to the horizontal to a depth of 15.2 m. At the seafloor, the system was designed to include a section of 15.2 m chain with one end attached to the anchor line. In this design approach, 1/3 of the chain is pulled up into the water column by the subsurface flotation forming a spring-catenary that provides pretension to the system preventing sudden loads. Two-thirds of the chain is situated on the seafloor and is connected to a drag embedment anchor. Drag embedment anchors are efficient when loaded horizontally with some having a holding power up to 50 times the weight.
