• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.39 no.12
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• pp.1213-1220
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• 2015

A deep seabed integrated mining system consists of a mining vessel, a lifting pipe, a buffer station, a flexible pipe, and a mining robot for collecting manganese nodules. Recently, the concept of multiple mining robots was introduced to enhance to mining productivity. In this paper, the subsystem synthesis method was applied to the deep seabed integrated mining system in order to improve the efficiency of system analysis and to facilitate its extension to the system of multiple mining robots. Large deflections of the lifting and flexible pipe were considered by dividing a flexible pipe into several substructures, and applying flexible multibody dynamics to each substructure. Theoretical study has been carried out for the efficiency of the subsystem synthesis method for the integrated mining system, by comparing the arithmetic operational counts of the subsystem synthesis method with those of the conventional method.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.128-134
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• 2015

Axial vibration analysis is very important for a deep-seabed mining system. In this study, an axial vibration analysis was carried out to estimate the natural frequencies and tensions of the umbilical cable using experimental data obtained from the first pre-pilot mining test. The axial vibrations of the umbilical cable with a pilot mining robot at the bottom end were analytically determined. The range of the added mass coefficients of the pilot mining robot is estimated by comparing the experimental and analytical data. The natural frequencies and maximum tensions are calculated using four estimated added mass coefficients.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.80-86
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• 2013

KIOST developed a deep-sea mining robot called "MineRo" to collect manganese nodules in 2007. MineRo operates on flat ground. SMS (seafloor massive sulfide) deposits are shaped like undulating mountains. This paper deals with a numerical analysis model of a mining robot for SMS deposits. The mining robot consists of a tracked vehicle, chassis structure with a turntable, boom arm with 2 articulations, excavation tool, discharging unit, hydro-electric system, and sensing-and-monitoring system. In order to compare and analyze the dynamic responses of the driving mechanism, various tracked vehicles are modeled using commercial software. Straight driving simulations are conducted under undulating ground conditions. A conceptual design of a mining robot with four track systems for SMS deposits is modeled on the basis of these results.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.689-702
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• 2019

This paper deals with the verification of the functions about mining robot, which is the system for developing deep seabed resources by applying V&V(verification and validation). In order to overcome water pressure of 500 bar and to travel on soft ground, and to operate in deep sea environment with bad conditions, it is necessary to develop a robot that can satisfy various deepsea conditions. A mining robot has been developed based on simulation based design and Multidisciplinary design optimization. In order to verify the developed robot, lab test and real sea test should be performed for various marine environment conditions. There are too many requirements to consider, such as space, time, cost, personnel, and environment to do performance test. So it is costly and time consuming for developing robot. In order to solve this problems, V&V technique was applied to mining robot. The stages of mining robot design, fabrication and commission were verified.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.455-463
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• 2014

This paper presents data from performance tests carried out to assess a manganese nodule crusher. Manganese nodules should be crushed into smaller pieces in order to assure the slurry flow of the lifting system. Both artificial nodules and real manganese nodules are used to evaluate nodule breaking ability of the crusher. The crushing performance of the crusher depends on the flow rate and pressure of the power transmission device. The size of the crushed manganese nodules also depends on the shape of the crushing drum. In this paper, several comparative tests are carried out to evaluate and improve the crushing performance and find the optimal design point of the crusher.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.152-159
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• 2014

KRISO(Korea Research Institute of Ships & Ocean Engineering) designed and manufactured a pilot mining robot called "MineRo" in 2012. MineRo is composed of four track modules. In general, much time and money are needed for deep-sea tests. Therefore, a numerical analysis to predict the dynamic behaviors has to be performed before a deep-sea test. In the numerical analysis, the information about the mining robot and soil properties are the most important factors to analyze the driving performance and dynamic response of MineRo. A terra-mechanics model of extremely cohesive soft soil is implemented in the form of the relationships between the normal pressure and sinkage, and between the shear stress and shear displacement. It is possible to acquire information about MineRo from the CAD model in the design phase. The Wong model is applied to the terra-mechanics model. This model is necessary to acquire many soil coefficients for a numerical analysis. However, in soil testing, the amount of soil property data obtained is limited. Moreover, it is difficult to analyze all of the cases for the many soil coefficients. In this paper, the dynamic behaviors of MineRo are analyzed according to the driving velocity, steering ratio, and variable extremely cohesive soft soil properties using a table of orthogonal arrays. The dynamic responses of MineRo are the turning radius, sinkage, and slip ratio. The relationships between the dynamic responses and variable soil properties are derived for MineRo.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.36 no.12
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• pp.1627-1633
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• 2012

A deep-sea pressure vessel needs to protect the internal electrical equipment from the high external pressure. Thus, the pressure vessel should be designed to be watertight and structurally safe. In this study, a cylindrical-type pressure vessel comprising a hollow cylinder and cover plates at both ends is investigated. For communication between the internal electronic equipment and the external device, holes are bored on the cover plate to install underwater connectors. Considering the type of internal equipment and underwater connector specifications, multiple holes may be required. These holes can affect the structural safety of the pressure vessel cover plate. In this study, the optimum design of the hole arrangement in consideration of the structural safety of the cover plate was performed.