(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.