Experimental study of hydraulic current in cylindrical aquaculture ‎tank

Aquaculture cylindrical tanks are growing in the world due to the less water consumption and more product efficiency. Study on Hydraulic of this tank is the first step for recognition of sedimentation and solid removal efficiency. This paper is a laboratory study based on flow velocity analysis in different flow depth. The results show that the flow velocity gradient increased in the vector of inlet current toward tank inner bank and due to the incoherence of ISO-velocity layers in different depth, the secondary currents shaped particularly near the tank bank. Also, related to jet current forces, reflected current formed in different parts of the tank pyramid by incidence of jet current to bank of the tank. Local velocity in the middle and beneath depth increased and reflected current depreciate in longer distance on circular current. By increasing the outlet central discharge, the current velocity increased in deeper depth. Due to the local and secondary flows, there is not a match velocity pattern for different discharges in tank. Range of ratio of local velocity to average velocity with depth of 0.2 from tank bottom changes between 0.6 and 1.78 for inlet discharges. Also the results show that the calculated Froude number in each local point related to ratio of local radius to tank radius.