(10)A buoyancy vertical transport system of deep-sea mining
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Shijun Liao a,b,∗
a State Key Laboratory of Ocean Engineering, Shanghai 200240, China
b School of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Civil Engineering, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Received 15 May 2020; accepted 15 May 2020
Available online 23 May 2020
Abstract
Generally speaking, the systems of deep-sea mining consist of a mining support vessel at surface, a seafloor collector on seabed, and a
vertical transport system connecting them. The traditional vertical transport systems of deep-sea mining, which are either hydraulic or airlift,
have low efficiency and high cost. In this paper, a kind of buoyancy vertical transport system of deep-sea mining is briefly described. Unlike
the traditional ones, this new transport system is based on buoyancy and gravity, which could work in arbitrary depth of water but cheaper.
© 2020 Shanghai Jiaotong University. Published by Elsevier B.V.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Keywords: Deep-sea mining; Vertical transport system; Buoyancy; South china sea.