Modeling thermal environment of a recirculating aquaculture system facility

Economic viability of fish production in recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) facility depends on minimizing the energy requirements of operating such facilities. The fish growth and water quality aspects of RAS have been studied in considerable details. However, the understanding of the thermal environment of RAS lags behind. A step-wise steady-state thermal model was developed to simulate the daily heating, ventilation, water pumping, biofilter operation, and lighting energy requirements over a production cycle. The model was validated using temperature and energy data collected from RAS facility of Virginia Tech during 1992. Model simulations were performed with various production scenarios. The energy cost of fish production ($/kg) was used to evaluate different scenarios with and without heat recovery from discharged system water. Building heating required the most (40 % - 70 % of total) energy followed by water pumping, biofilter operation, lighting, and ventilation. Water replacement was the most dominant factor in determining the facility’s heating energy requirement. Heat recovery from discharged system water indicated significant drop (up to 40 %) in energy cost of fish production.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Agricultural Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Agricultural Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

1993

Author dc:creator

• Singh, Sahdev

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

etd-12302008-063343

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/46442