Bachelor Thesis Candidate Lena Eggers (2007)

The conjunction of planned offshore wind farms with open ocean aquaculture within the German Bight offers a new possibility for extensive blue mussel (Mytilus edulis) cultivation. The moorings of wind energy plants can be used as fixation points for a submerged longline system. The longline technique consists of a buoyed, horizontal running backline anchored at either end. Mussel collectors attached to this backline are vertically suspended in the water column.

The aim of this Bachelor Thesis is to determine the drag coefficients of the mussel collectors, which are needed to calculate required constructive modifications of the moorings and abandoning additional foundation costs. Therefore a test body as well as various fully overgrown collector types will be tested in a towing tank of the HSVA (Hamburgische Schiffbau-Versuchsanstalt).

Another topic of the study is to complete the data, collected by load sensors attached to an entire monopile-longline-monopile test-construction, which was set up in March 2006 off the coast of Schleswig-Holstein. Parameters measured at this test site were wind and current velocity and direction, and forces from the entire longline. The achieved data will be used to develop and verify a computer model for mechanical loads generated by longlines attached to offshore wind energy plants.

The study is financed by the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research and by the Ministry for Construction, Environment and Transport in Bremen (Germany), Project AquaLast

Supervisor:

Prof. Dr. Bela H. Buck (AWI)
Prof. Dr. Oliver Zielinski (University of Applied Sciences, Bremerhaven)
Jens Assheuer (Technologiekontor Bremerhaven [TKB])