CN1065191C - Deep sea distributed mining system - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention discloses a deep sea distributed mining system, which comprises a mining machine (3), a conveying pipe (2) and an overwater ship/overwater platform (1), wherein the upper end of the conveying pipe (2) is connected with the overwater ship/overwater platform (1), the lower end of the conveying pipe is provided with a transfer bin (4) which extends into water to a certain height away from an ocean bottom, the mining machine (3) and the conveying pipe (2) are split, and the mining machine (2) is provided with a power and running device and a buoyancy adjusting device and floats on the surface of the ocean bottom to run and collect mines according to respective preset paths. The invention has the advantages of high acquisition efficiency, large maneuverability of the ore collector, high production operation rate, dispersed production risk, small influence on marine environment and the like, and can be used for mining mineral resources such as deep sea manganese nodule and the like.

Description

Deep sea distributed mining system

The invention relates to a deep-sea mining system, especially a deep-sea distributed mining system composed of a collector, a conveying pipe, a water vessel or a water platform, which is suitable for deep-sea manganese nodules, cobalt crusts, polymetallic slimes, lumps and other minerals. collection of resources.

At present, there are three types of popular deep-sea mining polymetallic nodules and slime systems: towed ore collection and pipeline lifting system; self-propelled ore collection and pipeline lifting system; shuttle mining machine mining system. "Metal Mine" 1991 NO. 11PP56-59 introduces a deep-sea mining system, which was jointly built by companies from the United States, Japan, Canada and Germany in the 1970s. The system includes: a modified drilling ship SEDCO445 as a mining ship, a 5500m long pipeline, A towed mining machine. The ore collector is towed by the mining ship through the main pipe. After the nodules are mined by the ore collector, the negative pressure caused by the pump or expanded compressed air is used to lift the nodules to the water surface through the hose and the main pipe. In 1985, Germany cooperated with France to improve the mining machine of the system, changing it to a crawler self-driving type, so that it can move on the seabed by itself, and after the nodules are collected, the preliminary treatment is carried out first, and the nodules are broken into certain pieces. degree, and then send it to the buffer through the pump, and then the buffer transports the polymetallic nodules to the surface mining ship through the pipeline. There are some insurmountable problems in this mining system, namely: the drift effect of the conveying pipe and the rigidity of the ore slurry flowing with a certain pressure and flow in the hose, so the degree of freedom provided for the ore collector is limited, making the ore collector It is difficult to carry out ore-collecting operations according to the predetermined trajectory, and it is difficult to guarantee the efficiency and recovery rate of ore-collecting; according to the output of the minimum industrial production scale, the acceptable walking speed and nodule abundance of the ore-collecting machine, the width of the ore-collecting machine in this system must reach More than 20 meters, very wide ore collectors are difficult to ensure a good walking state on the seabed with complex terrain; the mining system is structurally integrated, and any component failure will cause the entire production to stop; crawler-type ore collectors When the machine is collecting ore, the crawler will cause a large disturbance to the sediment layer on the ocean bottom, and the conveying pipe and the ore collecting machine are integrated. Bringing it to the upper surface of the ocean will cause damage and impact on the marine environment; the seabed sediment layer has low adhesion coefficient and poor shear strength, and it is easy for the crawler to "slip" or "sink" when walking on it.

The purpose of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems in the prior art, and propose a deep-sea collection and distribution system with high ore collection efficiency and recovery rate, good mobility of the ore collection machine, dispersed production risks, and little damage and impact on the marine environment. mining system.

To achieve the object of the invention, the present invention adopts the following technical solutions:

The deep-sea collecting and distributing mining system of the present invention includes an ore collecting machine, a conveying pipe, and a water vessel or a water platform. The ore collector can be several or single; the ore collector is suspended on the surface of the ocean floor, with its own power, driving device, and buoyancy adjustment device. The ore collector and the conveying pipe are split; Or the water platform is connected, and the lower end is provided with a transfer warehouse extending into the water to a certain height from the ocean bottom. The ore collectors run independently according to their respective predetermined paths to collect ore. After collecting a certain load of nodules, the ore collectors travel to the lower end of the conveying pipe to unload the nodules into the transfer warehouse, and then transported to the water vessel or platform by the conveying pipe.

The driving device of the above-mentioned ore collector can use an internal magnetic field propeller; the buoyancy adjustment device is composed of a buoyancy chamber and an electrolysis device, and the buoyancy of the buoyancy chamber is adjusted through the electrolysis of water to generate gas and discharge gas to keep the ore collector in a suspended state.

Compared with the existing deep-sea mining system, the deep-sea distributed mining system provided by the present invention has the following advantages:

(1) The ore collectors have great mobility, and each ore collector can independently drive and collect ore according to a predetermined path, and the travel of the ore collectors is limited by the area, so the collection efficiency is greatly improved.

(2) The mining machine can be one or more, and the size of the mining machine is not limited by the production scale.

(3) When a mining machine fails, other mining machines can still operate normally, which has little impact on the collection and production of the entire industrial enterprise, so the production risk is dispersed and the operation rate is high.

(4) The ore collector is in a suspended state, which has little disturbance to the sediment layer on the ocean bottom; the conveying pipe has a certain height from the ocean bottom. Therefore, it is beneficial to protect the marine environment.

(5) The ore collector is in a suspended state, and has little dependence on the geotechnical characteristics of the ocean bottom sediment layer, and there will be no problems such as "slipping" or "sinking" of the crawler ore collector.

In order to better describe the present invention, the present invention will be further described in detail below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and embodiments.

Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of the structural connection of the deep-sea distributed mining system.

Figure 2 is a schematic diagram of the structure of the mining machine.

Figure 3 is a schematic diagram of the structure of the internal magnetic field electromagnetic propeller used on the ore collector.

In the deep-sea distributed mining system shown in Figure 1. The upper end of the delivery pipe 2 is connected to the mining ship 1 on the ocean surface, and a nodule transfer warehouse 4 is located at the lower end at a height of 10 to 1000 meters from the ocean bottom. The function of the transfer bin 4 is to store the nodules collected by the ore collector 3, and break the nodules into certain particle sizes according to the transportation requirements and evenly feed them into the conveying pipe 2. The number of mining machines 3 is flexibly configured depending on the scale of production and mining and mining capacity. The ore collecting machine 3 is positioned at the surface of the ocean floor, and has its own power and driving device, buoyancy adjustment device.

In the ore collecting machine shown in Fig. 2, several buoyancy adjustment devices 5 are arranged on the collecting bin 6, and the bottom of the collecting bin 6 is provided with an internal magnetic field electromagnetic propeller 7, that is, a traveling device. The ore collecting head 8 is collected in the collection bin 6 after nodules are collected.

The buoyancy adjustment device 5 of the ore collector is composed of several buoyancy chamber containers with openings at the lower end. Each buoyancy chamber container is equipped with an exhaust valve on the upper part, and the anode or cathode of the electrolysis water device is installed inside each buoyancy chamber. The electrodes have different polarities and are divided into oxygen buoyancy chambers and hydrogen buoyancy chambers. When it is necessary to increase the buoyancy, increase the current fed into the electrode, and the gas generated by the electrolysis of seawater by the current will be released in large quantities on the electrode, and the released gas will discharge the seawater in the buoyancy chamber covered thereon, and the buoyancy of the buoyancy chamber will increase; When it is necessary to reduce the buoyancy, the exhaust valve at the upper end of the buoyancy chamber is opened, the gas is discharged from the upper part of the buoyancy chamber, and at the same time seawater flows into the buoyancy chamber from the lower part, and the buoyancy of the buoyancy chamber decreases. In order to avoid the mixing of hydrogen and oxygen discharged into the seawater, the oxygen chamber and the hydrogen chamber are exhausted alternately, not at the same time. The buoyancy adjustment device keeps the ore collector in a suspended state during the entire operation, and adjusts the ore collector to be in various required postures by adjusting the buoyancy of each buoyancy chamber on the ore collector. After collecting the nodules, the ore collector drives to the top of the transfer bin of the conveying pipe, and adjusts the buoyancy of each buoyancy bin so that the ore collector is in a tilted state. In the warehouse.

The driving device of the mining machine adopts an electromagnetic propeller with an internal magnetic field, and its structural schematic diagram is shown in Figure 3, which is composed of an electrode 9, a coil 10, and a catheter 11. When an electric field and a magnetic field are applied to the seawater in the conduit, the Lorentz force acts on the seawater, causing the seawater to be ejected from the pipeline, and its reaction force generates thrust to push the ore collector forward. The magnitude and direction of its thrust depend on the magnitude and direction of the current. As long as the magnitude and direction of the current are controlled, the running speed and direction of the mining machine can be controlled.

Claims (4)

1. deep-sea collecting and distributing type mining system, comprise collecting machine (3), delivery pipe (2), waterborne vessel/above water platform (1), the upper end of delivery pipe (2) links to each other with waterborne vessel/above water platform (1), it is characterized in that: the lower end of described delivery pipe (2) is provided with middle roll-over (4) and stretches in the water apart from the ocean floor certain altitude, between described collecting machine (3) and delivery pipe (2) is split type, and collecting machine (3) self-powered and mobile devices (7), buoyancy regulating device (5) are suspended in the ocean floor surface by the predetermined separately path Ji Kuang that travels.

2. deep-sea collecting and distributing type mining system as claimed in claim 1 is characterized in that the mobile devices that have on the described collecting machine are internal magnetic field electromagnetic propeller (7), and it contains electrode (9), coil (10), conduit (11).

3. deep-sea collecting and distributing type mining system as claimed in claim 1 or 2 is characterized in that described buoyancy regulating device (5) is by several tops the buoyant cabin container that blow off valve, lower openings, inside be equipped with the male or female of electrolytic water device to be housed to constitute.

4. deep-sea collecting and distributing type mining system as claimed in claim 3, the height that it is characterized in that the following end distance ocean floor of described delivery pipe (2) is 10～1000 meters.

Images