Deep-sea Mining Valve Regulated Clear Water Pump Ore Conveying System

With the scarcity of mineral resources on land, human began to set sights on the vast ocean, where there are so many mineral resources. By the end of 1970s, China engaged in the exploration and research of polymetallic nodules. The mining system for polymetallic nodules that China selected is composed of automatic harvester and hydraulic lifting system. On this basis, our country has completed the technical design of the deep-sea middle test system.The transporting system is required to have big throughput,long-term safety and reliability work by the transporting technology, which is one of the two key technologies for deep-sea mining. The main problems of actual transporting system are as follows:the axial force on the lifting pipe is great, so the lifting pipe will break off at about 3000 meters, and slurry pumps are easy to get worn, which means their service lives are short.In view of the above problems and based on the analysis of ores hydraulic transporting system that researched at home and abroad, a new deep-sea mining hydraulic transporting system was designed, and an analysis has been made on it. First of all, a valve-control ores transporting equipment is made, according to the advantages of the vessel with conveying solid particles and the high-pressure pump, and a carbon fiber composite pipe with low density, high intensity, good wearproof ability is made, according to the mixed theorem of composite materials. Then a valve-control pump ores transporting system is obtained, which contains an valve-control ores transporting equipment,a carbon fiber composite pipe and a hose. Secondly, a calculation and analysis is made on the new hydraulic transporting system, using the principle of pipeline transporting and the two phases hydrodynamics. The system is proved to be flexible in theory. Thirdly, the key components of the valve-control pump ores transporting system are designed, according to its working characteristics. Fourthly, the finite element model of the transporting system is established, and based on D'Alembert principle, the geometric nonlinear basic equation has been established. Static analysis for the lifting pipe and the mineral transporting system have been done under the hypothesis that they are under coupling action of the wave,the current,the towing of the ship and the traction of the mining vehicle. The analysis results show that the carbon fiber composite pipe can be used as lifting pipe, and the forces on the ship and the mining vehicle acted by the transporting system is small, which means the forces do not affect their normal work. Lastly, an experimental model for mineral transporting equipment that combined vessel with pump is made, using model theory. An experiment on the experimental model has been done. From the analysis of the experiment, the mineral transporting equipment is proved to be able to transport ore from the seabed of 5000m to the mining ship directly.The research results will play an important instructing role in theory to the design of the rigid pipe deep-sea mining system, and help to build up our technology system for mining, as well as complete the reserve of related technologies.