This study aims to analyze the performance of a submersible fish cage which was designed for developing an economical cage system can be applied in korean aquaculture environment easily. To analyze the performance of the designed cage a model test was carried out. In the test, inclination changes of the upper frame and mooring tensions of model cage were measured during the submerging and surfacing motion in still water and wave condition (period: 2s, wave height: 0.1, 0.2, 0.3m). As a result, in the still water condition the model cage kept horizontal balance and inclination degree of the upper frame was about 1˚. In the wave condition, the model cage showed bilateral symmetric up-and-down motion but the average inclination degree of the upper frame was about 0˚. When the model cage reached at a depth of 1m, the up-and-down motion of the cage was decreased by 12% compared with that of at the surface (period 2s, height 0.3m). In the same wave condition, the maximum and average line tension under the bottom position were about 8% and 11% respectively compared with that of at surface.

In this research, the submersible fish cage was designed to avoid structural and biological damage during harsh sea conditions. The submersible cage system consists of netting, mooring ropes, a floating collar, floats, sinkers and anchors. Whole elements of the cage were modeled on the mass-spring model. The computer simulations were carried out to investigate the dynamic behavior of the cage and to calculate mooring line tension subjected to tidal currents and waves. As expected, the tension values in the mooring line of the submerged position are 36% less compared to that of the surface cage under the same loading conditions. As the wave was used in combination with the current velocity of 1m/s, the average tensile load for the submerged cage showed 85% of the value for the floating cage. The simulation results provide an improved understanding of the behaviors of the structure and valuable information on the optimized design of the cage system exposed to open ocean environmental factors.

Numerical modeling was used to evaluate the submerging characteristics of the submersible fish cage system operated by compressed air. The submerging characteristics calculated by numerical analysis as the cage was moved up and down were nearly identical to existing experiment results. Thus, the numerical model proposed in this study could be very useful in analyzing various parameters required for optimizing the design of a submersible fish cage system operated by compressed air.

To develop a new fish cage which is required for offshore or moving cage culturing system has been gradually increased against being closely dense of fish cage in shallow water. Though submersible fish cage culturing system is essential technology for converting from shallow water into the offshore, it was pointed out the serious problem about stability of which are sinking and floating state. This study is presented conceptual design of submersible fish cage centered with a mooring steel pile to acquire stability and faculty. Design of mooring steel pile for submersible fish cage culturing system needs to carry out optimal design of mooring steel pile for which much efforts are required. Formulation and optimal design process of submersible fish cage are organized into using Sequential Quadratic Programming method of numerical optimization. For submersible fish cage system centered with a mooring steel pile, process of the optimal design is proposed and the optimal solutions are obtained

The real size submersible fish cage(L×B×D, 3×3×6m)system consists of the compressed air equipment was made in order to control efficiently in case of heavy weather or environmental pollution such as red tide, and then carried out experiment on the submersible functions and safety for that cage at Koje inland sea in 14th June, 1995. The authors could confirm that the submersible cage was very stabilized it's submersible functions and safety when the cage was floating and sinking at sea.