Study of geometric shape and water circulation pattern in fish tanks using computational fluid dynamics

Providing comfort conditions for fish from the point of view of velocity uniformity and flow regime is one of the most important requirements of aquaculture improving the production conditions. In this research, for this purpose, by using computational fluid dynamics, Fluent software and k-ɛ turbulence model, the geometrical shape and pattern of water circulation in a fish breeding pond have been investigated. In this research, three square, circular and corner ponds have been selected as common ponds for breeding cold water fish and different scenarios have been analyzed after preparing the geometry of the ponds using flow uniformity and hydrodynamic indicators. The results of the simulation showed that the uniformity index in the circular pond was 0.940048, in the corner pond it was 0.919447 and in the square pond it was 0.874226. Therefore, it can be concluded that the uniformity index of the flow pattern and velocity field improves as the shape of the ponds approaches the circular state, although the physical space occupied by the ponds should also be considered.