Full-scale experiments on a coandă-effect-based polymetallic-nodule collector

Full-scale experiments on a coandă-effect-based polymetallic-nodule collector

Alhaddad, S.M.S. (TU Delft Offshore and Dredging Engineering)
de Jonge, Laurens (Royal IHC)
Boomsma, W.B.A. (Royal IHC)
Helmons, R.L.J. (TU Delft Offshore and Dredging Engineering; Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU))

2022

Polymetallic nodules are potato-sized rock accretions that form on vast areas of the abyssal plains of the global ocean. These nodules are rich in commercially precious metals, such as nickel, cobalt and copper, making them a target for potential future deep-sea exploitation. Generally, polymetallic nodules are partially buried in the seabed sediment, which is predominantly composed of clay. Among the existing mechanisms for mining polymetallic nodules (mechanical, hydraulic and hybrid), hydraulic collecting is deemed the most suitable technology in deep sea mining. This is primarily because hydraulic collecting hardly involves interaction with the seabed during the collection process (Agarwal et al., 2012); the collector generates a pressure gradient to harvest the nodules, thus substantially reducing the associated disturbance to the seabed.

deep sea mining
polymetallic nodules
nodule pick-up device
hydraulic collector
Coandă effect

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:1b1d0704-d08a-481c-a3a0-8f986cad0e47

WODA

2023-07-01

Proceedings of the World Dredging Conference, WODCON XXIII: Dredging is Changing

WODCON XXIII, 2022-05-16 → 2022-05-20, Tivoli Hotel, Copenhagen, Denmark

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Institutional Repository

conference paper

© 2022 S.M.S. Alhaddad, Laurens de Jonge, W.B.A. Boomsma, R.L.J. Helmons