Energy Modeling of an Aquaculture Raceway

Large seasonal temperature variations in aquaculture source water leave aquaculture ponds and raceways susceptible to temperature variations leading to nonoptimal growing conditions. Such conditions may slow down the growth rate and make aquatic species vulnerable to disease and potential death, leading to economic setback for aquaculture farmers. Therefore, it is advantageous to predict the temperature of aquaculture raceways under the influence of seasonal variations and study the parameters that contribute to these variations. This allows one to develop strategies and processes to better regulate the raceway temperature to maximize its productivity. A numerical energy model was developed to simulate the temperature of water inside an aquaculture raceway, and a parametric study was conducted to investigate the influence of various key parameters on the raceway temperature. It was found that surface area and flowrate have a large effect on the raceway temperature, while depth of raceway had little effect. The largest surface area tested produced outlet temperatures and heat transfer values that were 6.2% and 76% higher, respectively, than the smallest surface area tested. Decreasing flowrate from the reference value of 43 L/s to 1 L/s resulted in an 83% increase in average outlet temperature. It was also observed that the variations in the ambient air temperature alone have negligible effect on the raceway temperature. The model was further implemented to simulate the temperature of raceways located at different geographical locations.