In the Northeast United States, kelp has great potential as a food source. The development of the kelp farming industry has led to a need to understand how best to optimize means of production. This project aims to understand how to best optimize nutrient flow and light by changing the spacing between kelp crop lines. Unlike a rigid body, for which drag would increase quadratically, the drag on the kelp bundle increased to a power less than 2. This fact can be explained by the change in kelp bundle shape. Experimental flume images and force data will be used to describe the drag per line length and compared to other studies on kelp and other aquatic plant species.

The SuperUROP program is an opportunity to use my collective knowledge gained from the Course 1 department to focus on a project that combines my interests in coastal ecology and fluid dynamics. This project will allow me to develop the research skills that I can apply in graduate school.