Simulation Of Mining Cobalt-rich Crusts By Spiral Mining Head And Optimization Of Work Parameters

Cobalt-rich crust, which grows in the smooth slope of seamountranged from 800 to 3000 m is one of the most attractive mineral resourcesin the deep sea bed. Its average thickness is only 4 to 6 centimeters, and isrich in strategic resources such as cobalt, platinum, nickel, manganese,copper, iron, phosphorus, titanium, zinc, lead and cerium etc. Because ofits practically strategic, economic and political significance, cobalt-richcrust has become a great concern in ocean resource exploitation for everycountry.The first problem of mining cobalt-rich crust is how to crush the thinlayer of cobalt crust from the fluctuant surface of bedrock, it is requiredto guarantee high collective rate, lesser mullock interfusion rate. In themining process, granularity distribution is required reasonable, so thatcobalt crust can be lifted to the supporting boat smoothly by the liftingsystem, and reduces environmental pollution. The collective rate, mullockinterfusion rate, energy consumption and the rule of granularitydistribution is not only related to the structural parameters of spiralmining head, but also related to the different work parameters in differenttiny topography of deep sea bed.Under the support of Item DY105-03-02, the following contentssuch as the mechanics characteristic included limit parameters of mininghead, distribution rule of broken granularity, work parameters matchingof mining head in different tiny topography etc, have been lucubrated inthis paper.In this paper, the kinematical law and mechanics characteristic of thepick and the mining head have been researched. Based on these results,the condition of mining head to work accurately has been proponed, andthe constraint extent of rotation speed and traction speed of the mininghead has been presented in the meantime. According to differenttopography and different height of mining head, the cutting region of pickhas been determined, and the number model of pick which are in thecutting region has been presented also.In order to reduce the cost and risk of research, the computer simulation technology has been applied to the research of miningcobalt-rich crust. According to the simulation models, a simulationprogram has been developed to simulate the mining process, thus thetransforming trend charts and extremum of mechanics parameters havebeen concluded, which can be provided theoretical reference for thedesign of mining head.A chipping thickness model has been established in differentworking conditions, which is related to the characteristics of tinytopography and the axis height of mining head, traction speed androtation speed. According to fractal characteristic of cobalt crust and itsbedrock, fractal theory has been applied to the research of granularitydistribution law of broken cobalt crust, and the fractal distribution modelhas been built firstly.Because there are some problems when the genetic algorithm andsimulated annealing algorithm was applied, separately, so a improvedsimulated annealing genetic algorithm has been presented. The improvedalgorithm has been applied to the optimal research of mining head's workparameters, and the result is satisfied. But, it needs a long time tooptimize the work parameters using simulated annealing geneticalgorithm, it can not satisfy the real-time control of mining cobalt-richcrust. In order to solve this problem, the actual tiny topography have beenmarked off 11 class according to difference of height, and regressivemodels of optimum work parameters have been developed correspondingto each class topography. So, in the practical mining process, according tothe characteristic of topography, the optimum work parameters areselected by the use of regressive models instead of to use SAGA.In a word, the research outcome has a theoretical and practicalsignificance to mining cobalt-rich crust in the future.