Proceedings of the Thirty-second (2022) International Ocean and Polar Engineering Conference
Shanghai, China, June 5–10, 2022
Copyright © 2022 by the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE)
ISBN 978-1-880653-81-4; ISSN 1098-6189

www.isope.org

Chinese Development and Application of Test Platform for Deep-Sea Polymetallic Sulfide Mining
Songyu Lia, Xinzhuang Dua, Luyao Zhangb, Ken Chena, Shuai Wangc
aChina ship scientific research center

Shanghai, ChinabShanghai Marine Diesel Engine Research InstituteShanghai, ChinacShanghai Oriental Maritime Engineering Technology Co. Ltd.
Shanghai, Chinavery considerable. It has attracted exploration activities from variouscountries. Canada's Nautilus Minerals has completed the development
and delivery of three deep seabed mining equipment for commercial
mining of polymetallic sulphide mines in its exclusive economic zone
in Papua New Guinea in 2018 (Kawano and Hisatoshi, 2022). In
September 2017, METI and JOGMEC conducted the world's firstsuccessful seafloor polymetallic sulphide mining and collection test
(Okamoto, et al., 2018). Before the 2017 Japanese continuously

ABSTRACT
Because of the high cost and difficulty in the monitoring of underwater
experiments of deep-sea mining equipment, this paper has developed a
new polymetallic sulfide "mining and transferring" test platform. It
realizes the basic conditions for conducting experimental research on
deep-sea mineral mining, transfer, and delivery on land. The existing
deep-sea mining systems and test platforms at home and abroad areinvestigated in this paper. It is determined that the test platform has thefunctions of mineral cutting, suction, secondary processing, storage,and lifting. To achieve the above functions, the test platform includes apool, a high-power hydraulic source, a mobile crane, a cutting &collection module, a secondary processing module, a hose pump, amineral separation module, a lifting pump, a buffer station, a cantilevercrane, a centralized control room, etc. By establishing 3 circulation
loops, the process of collection, transfer, and delivery can be tested
individually or collaboratively. To ensure the productivity of the cutting& collection module, it is necessary to realize the automatic adjustment
function of the cutting head's attitude. The kinematic model of thecutting arm is established and the range of motion is analyzed. Therelationship between the vertical movement of the cutting head and theextension of the hydraulic cylinder is obtained by numerical calculation.
Cement is used to simulate polymetallic sulfide mines, and the test
platform is used to carry out linkage tests of mineral collection, transfer,and delivery. The test results show that the automatic adjustment
function of the cutting head's attitude works well. The mineral cutting
device developed has a production capacity of 45 t/h, and the particle
size after the secondary processing of minerals is less than 30 mm.

lifting test of seafloor massive sulphides, numerous on land
excavation tests and 140 m long loop tests have been conductedsince 2012 (Okamoto, et al., 2019). The Chinese research teams fromCentral South University, Changsha Institute of Mining Research Co.,
China State Shipbuilding Co., Chinese Academy of Sciences, andShanghai Jiaotong University have carried out a lot of theoreticalanalysis and experimental research. Several collection system devices
have been developed for different types of minerals (Peng, 2020; Liu,Liu and Dai, 2014; Cao, Du, Song, Lin and Yang, 2020). With a large
number of offshore tests, several research institutions have establishedmore complete technical solutions for the development of deep-sea
mineral resources. The key technology development and coreequipment development capabilities have been mastered. However, thecost of sea trials remains high due to various uncertainties from theharsh environment at sea. A more cost-effective solution is to establish
the appropriate experimental facilities on land.
As part of the BlueMining project, the GSR company in Belgium has
built a variety of experimental systems for deep-sea manganese nodule
collection with the support of the DEME consortium (Toni, Helmut andJort, 2018). The system consists of a mineral collection and transportsystem laboratory, mineral lifting system laboratory, and mineral
walking test site, as shown in Figure 1. The mineral lifting systemlaboratory has a total height of 136 m and a pipe inner diameter of 150
mm. To allow easy replacement of defective sensors in case ofemergency, several pressure sensors are installed at equal distances on
the pipe.
The State Key Laboratory of Ocean Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong
University, constructed a deep-sea mining hydraulic lifting test
platform in 2017 (Liu, 2019). It is used to simulate the hydraulic lifting
process of mineral particles in a vertical pipe. The device mainly

KEY WORDS: Deep-sea mining; test platform; cutting arm;
kinematic model; mineral collection experiments
INTRODUCTION
Submarine polymetallic sulfide deposits generally occur at water depthsof tens of meters to 3,700 m. They are characterized by higher purity
metal content than onshore deposits. And these minerals are rich in lead,zinc, copper, gold, silver and other metals. The resource potential is9