Design and Strength Analysis of A Spherical Connector for Lifting Subsystem in Deep Sea Mining System

A flexible connector of lifting pipes in a deep sea mining system is designed. The buttress thread （ based on API standard） is used and foreign experience in connector design is referred to. With this kind of connector, the lifting pipe wiU only bear the axial force, free of moment. The strength of the connector is analyzed in detail, including the connecting strength of the buttress thread, the dynamic load of the pipe system, pressures inside and outside of the pipe, the lateral stress of the pipe wall and so on. Especially, a geometric model is built for 3-D contact stress analysis. The distribution graph of contact stress is presented. It is indicated that the strength of the spherical connector meets the demand.

Experiment and Simulation for Articulated Lifting Subsystem of 1000 m Deep Sea Mining System

The experiment system of 1000 m deep sea mining system is built up with the similarity theory. Sine mechanism is used to simulate mining ship to generate lateral shock excitation by ocean wave. Simulation and experiment of spherical joint connecting deep sea mining system has been done in band six marine conditions. The results indicate that the moment of spherical joint connecting deep sea mining is smaller than that of the thread connected ones, the lifting pipe of sphelical joint is ＂flexible pipe＂. The flexural torque of the articulated lifting pipe system in pump and buffer is generally periodic variation with some irregularity, the value is stable on 60 N·S, and it is obviously smaller than that of the fixed lifting pipe system; The total displacement exhibits cyclic variation pattern, and the periodicity of them is longer than that of sea current. The results of experiment and simulation are basically consistent. And the analysis in the paper offers theoretical foundation of 1000 m deep sea mining system in China.

Future Trends of Deep Sea Bed Mining Technology

The present status of deep sea bed mining technology for polymetallic nodules has been critically examined in light of its history of development the UNCLoS (the United Nation Convention on the Law of the Sea) regime and the current trends in research.The critical technologies have been highlighted and the need for system integration underscored. The deep sea bed environment and the engineering challenge were presented and the necessary features of the deep sea bed mining system for commercial mining was analyzed. The key accomplishments, problems and future bends in research in the development of the mining system are also discussed. Finally, it points out that the technology gaps can be filled by the bine commercial mining is undertaken as a result of market conditions in its favor.

Development of Mining Technology and Equipment for Seafloor Massive Sulfide Deposits

Seafloor massive sulfide（SMS） deposits which consist of Au, Ag, Cu, and other metal elements, have been a target of commercial mining in recent decades. The demand for established and reliable commercial mining system for SMS deposits is increasing within the marine mining industry. The current status and progress of mining technology and equipment for SMS deposits are introduced. First, the mining technology and other recent developments of SMS deposits are comprehensively explained and analyzed. The seafloor production tools manufactured by Nautilus Minerals and similar mining tools from Japan for SMS deposits are compared and discussed in turn. Second, SMS deposit mining technology research being conducted in China is described, and a new SMS deposits mining tool is designed according to the environmental requirement. Finally, some new trends of mining technology of SMS deposits are summarized and analyzed. All of these conclusions and results have reference value and guiding significance for the research of SMS deposit mining in China.

On the dynamics of the gravitational lifting system in the deep sea mining industry

The dynamics of the gravitational lifting system of the deep sea mining industry is demonstrated in this article.A simplified dynamic model is obtained when gravity,buoyancy and drag force are the major concerns.By quantitative analysis,different variables like bucket size,distribution distance,and filling rate are considered to measure their influence on lifting speed and production rate,which ends up with that the most influential factor is the bucket size,and it has a positive correlation with both the two targets:lifting speed and production rate.Due to the breaking strength of the cable wire rope,a feasible design of such a lifting system should take the tension force into consideration.Hence,the feasibility is also examined and a conclusion is summarized that a combination of the bucket size and the distribution distance should be optimized according to the concrete working conditions.

Experimental investigation of critical suction velocity of coarse solid particles in hydraulic collecting

Hydraulic collecting and pipe transportation are regarded as an efficient way for exploiting submarine mineral resources such as the manganese nodules and ores.Coarse particles on the surface of the sea bed are sucked by a pipe during the mining and crushing of the mineral.In this paper,the critical suction velocity for lifting the coarse particles is investigated through a series of laboratory experiments,and the solid-liquid two-phase flow characteristics are obtained.Based on the dimensional analysis,the geometric similarity is found between actual exploitation process and model test with the same kind of material.The controlling dimensionless parameters such as the hydraulic collecting number,the relative coarse particle diameter,the relative suction height,and the density ratio are deduced and discussed.The results show that the logarithm in base 10 of the hydraulic collecting number increases approximately linearly with the increase of the relative suction height,while decreases with the relative particle diameter.A fitting formula for predicting the critical suction velocity is presented according to the experimental results.