Investigation of cause and magnitude of scale effect occurring in model experiments of fishing nets

Abstract

In order to investigate the cause and magnitude of scale effect occurring in the model experiments of fishing nets, five pairs of Nylon pyramid nets and one pair of PE ones in which all the two nets paired were equal each other in the factors determining their flow resistance, i. e., the ratio d/l of diameter d to length l of bars, the angle f between two adjacent bars, the attack angle q of nettings to the water flow, and the wall area S of nets, and different in the values of d and l were prepared. Then, the nets were attached to the circular steel frame alternately and their flow resistances with shapes in water were measured on the sea ascribing no turbulent flows by using the tension meter made of a block bearing for the experiment. All the Nylon nets were spreads out easily in water to form a circular cone at relatively low velocity of water and showed the resistance smaller a little in the nets with larger d and l than them with smaller d and l, because the filtration of water through meshes become easier in nets especially with larger l. But PE nettings were not spread out sufficiently on account of their small flexibility and showed higher resistance especially in them with thicker twines. Therefore, the difference in bar length or mesh size and flexibility of nettings between prototype and model nets are regarded to become factors ascribing scale effect. Especially the influence of the difference in mesh size may become large significantly in actual model experiments because the mesh size of model nets is decided at much larger value than that given by scale ratio and so the difference of mesh size between the two nets become much larger than that between nets used in this experiment.