KR100208392B1 - Bucket mining device of deep-sea minerals - Google Patents

Abstract

In the continuous bucket mining device for submarine mineral resources such as manganese nodules in the deep sea bottom due to the mining line, it is possible to improve the resistance to the repetitive force, which is a problem with conventional ropes, and to have excellent tension and high rope resistance. By developing a new configuration that enables the use of a new type, a new type of traction drive system that withstands a strong tension that is difficult to traction with a conventional driving method, and a new dump method that facilitates dumping of mined bucket contents (Indian Ocean) An object of the present invention is to obtain a practical mining device.

Polypropylene ropes conventionally used as endless ropes have a specific gravity of lighter than seawater, so in order to increase the strength, a diameter of 240 mm must be used. Instead, a double twisted rope with nylon on the inside and tetron on the outside In order to compensate for the heavy weight of 168mm, it is necessary to attach a pressure buoyancy cylinder to achieve the required strength by using. For the dumping of the contents of the bucket ore, an inclined guide wheel with one side opening is installed, and the bucket is suspended by two hanging ropes and wound around the truss installed on the ship, and then dropped into the ship in a vertically upright position. To complete the configuration to achieve all of the objectives It was obtained.

Description

Deep Sea Mineral Mining Device

1 is a perspective view for conceptual description of the present invention.

2 is a perspective view of a part showing a state in which the endless rope has two buckets and a pressure buoyancy tube.

3 is a perspective view showing the mechanism of the traction rope guide wheel.

4 is a perspective view for explaining the operation of the traction rope guide wheel.

5 is a front view of the concrete attachment structure of the ball roller seen from the rope direction.

6 is a side view of a concrete attachment structure of the ball roller viewed from the rope line side.

7 is a side view showing the attachment of the horizontal traction drive wheel.

8 is a plan view showing the attachment of the horizontal traction drive wheel.

FIG. 9 is a plan view of a series traction arrangement of 13 sets of rollers.

10 is a side view of a serial tow arrangement of twelve horizontal drive wheels.

11 is a combined traction arrangement instruction diagram of a set of ball rollers and four horizontal drive wheels.

12 is a front view of the dump truss viewed from the rope advancing direction.

FIG. 13 is a side view of the dump truss seen from the side of the rope traveling direction.

* Explanation of symbols for main parts of the drawings

0: horizon 01: ship's path

02: sea level 1: skylight

2: variable pitch propeller 3: key

4: side trust 5: endless rope

6: Dredger Basket 6a: Dredger Basket Front Hanging Rope

6b: Dredger bucket rear hanging rope 7: Pressure buoyancy cylinder

7a: Pressure buoyancy cylinder front hanging rope 7b: Pressure buoyancy cylinder rear hanging rope

8: deep seabed

9: manga nese nodule

10: Subsea Obstacle 11: Tow Rope Slope Guide Wheel

12: Front driver (towing side) 13: Dump truss

14: rear driver (input side) 15: descent rope guide wheel

16: guide wheel 17: circular ring

18: holding arm 19: suspension axis

20: holding member 21, 28: holding truss

22, 23, 29, 30: bearing 24, 25, 31, 32: motor

26, 27: ball rollers 33, 34: horizontal traction drive wheel

35: guide wheel 36: inclination guide wheel

37: Guide wheel

The present invention relates to a continuous mining device such as manganese nodules distributed in the deep sea bottom. It can also be applied to sea mining such as cobalt-rich sea crust or shallow sea sand, phosphorescent and sea sand mining.

The present inventors have continued to research and develop the mining method and the mining device of the submarine minerals by the continuous bucket for a long time of about four and a half century until the present (January 1994). That is, (1) Japanese Patent Application No. 8979 (46-year Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 23482), (2) Japanese Patent Application No. 84864 (48-year Japanese Patent Application Patent 48864) Announcement No. 32829), (3) Japanese Patent Digestion No. 93181 (Japanese Patent Digestion 52 Years Patent Application Publication No. 6242), (4) Japanese Patent Digestion 48 Years Patent Application No. 9166 (Japanese Digestion) 52 Patent Application Publication No. 39361), (5) Japanese Patent Application No. 95799 (Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 48561), etc. In 1972, nearly 10 times of deep-sea mining tests were conducted, including a nocturnal mining test at 4,900 meters in the southeastern coast of Hawaii using the second Kyokuyo Maru (17,000 tons). It has been intended.

The conventional improvement is focused on how the two ropes are separated, and the vertical towing method of separating the two ropes from the transverse towing method using the ship's forward speed using the fluid resistance force to the resistance plate, In particular, recent improvements have been made to the pivotal mining method.

These mining methods are constituted by a drive device, an endless rope, a bucket, especially a dumping device, and the like.

The drive device has been tested with placing a plurality of drive wheels up and down, dumping mineral nodules as the bucket passes, or using a multi-drive wheel to remove the bucket. For endless ropes, eight ropes of polypropylene have conventionally been used. It was chosen with an emphasis on being buoyant in water and effective in avoiding obstacles (rocks, protrusions, foreign objects, etc.) by causing the rest of the rope to rise off the sea floor.

At present, a study is being conducted to actually mine the manganese nodules in the Indian Ocean using the deep-sea mineral bucket mining device. In endless ropes, a rope without twist is used to prevent entanglement caused by the twisting of the rope. Withstanding tension is an absolute condition. Currently, in order to mine the nodules at a rate of 1,000 tons per day from the deep sea of 5,000m, the breaking force of 600 tons is required with 100 tons of rope tension and 6 safety factor. If polypropylene has been used for deep sea mining, it is necessary to use a rope with a diameter of 240 mm for 8 ropes, and it may be too thick to be manufactured. If a stronger rope is needed and there is ups and downs in the seabed, it is necessary to prevent the rope from contacting the seabed to prevent it from being caught in the seabed obstruction.

Ball rollers have been considered for the driving mechanism of rope buckets, but the largest ball rollers completed in Japan are 800mm in diameter and 8 tons of towing force, so about 13 balls are required to safely transmit 100 tons of force. There is a need for a drive in series with the rollers. In order to be able to drive the bucket with this ball roller, there is a horizontal towing drive wheel. In this case, the safe driving of the rope requires a tow angle of 6 turns in experience, and the number of driving wheels is required, as shown in the example of the Hawaiian experiment of the second Kyokuyomaru, so that the driving device is too large. It is necessary to reduce the number of such driving devices and to miniaturize them.

On the other hand, a problem with these drives is that the rope may fall off the ball rollers and the horizontal traction drive wheels. It may be conceivable to place the guide wheels before and after to prevent this rope from falling off. This guide wheel is an important technical theme that connects the ship with the ship's outboard. The rope bucket pulled from the outboard changes both the direction angle and the inclination angle of the ship to the movement of the waves, the wind and the ship. Grabbing the rope basket on board is a problem that must be solved for practical use.

Next, there is a problem of dumping the bucket. How to collect the nodules in the mined bucket into the ship is an important task to be solved simply and clearly on the practical screen.

In general, it is strongly desired to obtain a concrete plan of the manganese nodule mining method and the mining device of the deep sea more economically simple and safe compared to the deep sea mining method by suction pump.

The present invention is intended to employ the following means in order to solve the above-mentioned four problems which exist as a detrimental factor in the practical use of the above-mentioned continuous basket light-emitting device. That is, the double twisted rope which has been put to practical use as a rope of strong tension in recent years. The rope of the inner nylon and the outer tetron can be manufactured having a diameter of 168 mm and a breaking force of 600 tons. However, when 8 ropes of the polypropylene according to the prior art are used, the specific gravity is smaller than that of seawater, so when the rope reaches the seabed, it floats from the bottom by buoyancy to prevent the rope from being caught by the obstacles of the seabed. Although the new nylon and Tetron ropes have a specific gravity greater than that of seawater, their own buoyancy is not available. Therefore, in order to achieve the same effect as before, a means to compensate for this by combining a pressure-bearing buoyant body with the rope is recommended. It was. That is, by combining the pressure-bearing buoyancy body with the two hanging ropes in the middle of the rope of the rope coupling, to give the required buoyancy. However, some of the nodular deposits in the deep seabed are flat enough to not require consideration of the obstacles in the seabed. Therefore, when there is no obstacle by prior irradiation, it is possible to mine without attaching the pressure-bearing buoyant body.

The driving device of the rope basket is a means for arranging a ball roller or a horizontal driving wheel which can be driven with the bucket attached to the rope, or a combination of the two methods to drive the driving device by combining the advantages. Take

In order to prevent the fall of the rope or the basket, which is a weak point of the two driving methods, the solution is solved by means of arranging the guide wheels before and after the driving device. The intake and delivery of the basket rope including the guide wheel to the shipboard is directed straight in the rope direction to prevent the rope from twisting. To this end, the guide wheels are attached to each other, and one side of the guide wheels is opened so that the mechanism can be simplified so that the bucket can pass through the rope.

The dumping mechanism of the basket is the front and rear of the basket when the basket passes through the one-way open guide wheel attached to the top of the truss. I fall.

The various substrates for the continuous basket mining device described above are properly attached to the place of the mining material, and the mining line is pulled down from the outside while pulling the rope inside the navigating trajectory while turning and turning a large diameter arc on the sea surface. This is to solve this problem in the form of continuous mining work in a form that is sufficiently open between both ropes.

An embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

1 is a perspective view (sea view is a perspective view) conceptually showing one embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, the mining ship 1 has a sufficient capacity for loading a mineral nodule on a large ship, and is assumed to be, for example, a length of a vessel of 170 m and a total tonnage of 30,000 tons. This mining line is assumed to have 1000 tonnes / day of nodular mining capacity from a seabed of 5,000 m deep in the ocean. As shown in FIG. 1, the mining line 1 includes a variable pitch propeller 2, a key 3, and a side thrust 4, thereby turning and steering by moving forward at low speed. It has enough performance.

On the magnificent endless rope 5 shown in FIG. 1, a plurality of dredger baskets 6 are attached to the two hanging ropes 6a and 6b at regular intervals. The buoyancy pressure buoyancy cylinder 7 for floating in water is attached by two hanging ropes 7a and 7b.

2 shows a situation in which the bucket and the pressure-bearing buoy are attached to each of the above hanging ropes. The endless rope 5 becomes a loop and is set to a length (12,000m) twice that of about 1.2 times (6,000m) of the water depth (5,000m) with the nodular deposit. Therefore, the loop length is 12,000m in the sea area of 5,000m depth, and the angle between the rope and the vertical is about 30 degrees.

The endless rope 5 equipped with the bucket 6 and the pressure-resistant buoyancy tube 7 is a bucket 6, pressure-bearing buoyancy into the ship from a towing rope inclined guide wheel 11 attached to one of the ships near the center of the ship. The cylinder 7 passes through the lower side of the guide wheel 11 without any trouble and is blown into the ship.

The traction drive of the rope is a series of devices such as the rear driver 14 again via the front driver 12 and the dump truss 13, and the endless rope 5 is hung with the internal pressure buoyancy tube 7 of the bucket. Driven. The nodular minerals in the buckets collected from the seabed and carried into the ship are airborne by the action of two hanging ropes 6a and 6b as the basket passes the inclined guide wheel installed on the top of the dumping truss 13. In the up-down fall position, and falls toward the receiving port in the ship.

The two rope lines, the drop-in side and the side to be pulled up, are included in the Japanese Patent No. 1628221 (Soha 61 Patent Application No. 027933, Pyeong Hyeon Patent Application Publication No. 052079) invented by the present inventor. As described in detail in the continuous mining device and the swingable mining method, by driving the endless rope 5 while the ship is turning, the risk of entanglement between the two ropes can be prevented.

However, the endless rope 5 has used all 8 ropes of polypropylene which are lighter than water as the endless rope 5 in the sea trials of 10 continuous baskets until now. The reason is that there is concern about the existence of subsea obstacles (10, FIG. 1) such as rocks that may exist on the sea floor. The deep sea floor (8) is generally flat, with manganese nodules (9) widely distributed on soft mud, but there may be some obstacles in the natural terrain. This can happen if the looped endless rope (5) is caught, but with a material that is lighter in weight than water, such as polypropylene or polyethylene, the ropeline will rise from the bottom and expect to break off the bottom. As it is possible, all the ropes have been made of polypropylene until today.

However, ropes with a lighter specific gravity than these waters have many concerns in terms of their lifespan. Specifically, in the mining test of the second Gyokuyomaru in Hawaii in 1972, it had a breaking force of 81 tons using 8 ropes of polypropylene with a diameter of 85 mm, but it was carried out on a single rope rotation (tested). If the 20 times bend to drive the rope at 0.8m / s to drive in the cycle 1 cycle 4 hours, that is, 6 cycles per cycle 120 times a day is repeated. Eight ropes of polypropylene are weak to bending stress and have a limit of 8,000 cycles. Because of this, there is a risk of being broken by driving for about 66 days (less than two months).

This makes economical mining difficult and necessitates the use of nylon or Tetron ropes without the weakness of repeated bending and creep. Nylon and Tetron are resistant to bending stress and are extremely strong from 100,000 cycles to 150,000 cycles, and are less likely to break due to creep. A life of three years is obtained for the two months.

Particularly, the current demand is to produce 1000 tons per day, so it takes rope tension close to 100 tons to operate with the size of 1m wide, 0.5m high, 0.5m long and 0.75m3 in volume every 25m. .

A safety factor of 6 requires a rope that can withstand a load of 600 tons. If 8 ropes of polypropylene are used as in the prior art, the diameter becomes 240 mm, which is a problem in manufacturing and handling.

Ropes currently in use to withstand such heavy loads can withstand these loads with a diameter of 168 mm if the double twisted ropes use nylon on the inside and Tetron on the outside. However, the weak point of this rope is that it is heavier than water, and when it reaches the bottom, this rope line is settled on the sea bottom, and it can be found in seawater debris 10 which may be irregular when moving deep sea bottom 8. There is a big risk. In order to cope with this, as shown in FIG. 2, the pressure-resistant buoyancy tube 7 is connected between the two adjacent bars of the basket 6 by the front suspension rope 7a and the rear suspension rope 7b. ) In order to float from the sea floor. Now, in order to float a double twisted rope made of nylon 168 mm in diameter (specific gravity 1.14) and Tetron (specific gravity 1.38) between 25 m of the bucket distance, the rope weight is 18.6 kg / m and the aerial weight is 465 kg and the underwater weight is about 100 kg. Therefore, the buoyancy required by the pressure buoyancy tube (7) is 120kg and the rope floats in the water.

As a buoyant material, when using a solid buoyant material with a specific gravity of about 0,65 in which glass hollow spheres, which are currently used in deep sea vessels, are hardened with epoxy resin, 120 (kg) ÷ (1-0.65) ≒ 342 (liter) A volume of 342 liters is required, resulting in a cylindrical buoyancy body of 54 cm in diameter and 150 cm in length.

3 shows the mechanism of the traction rope guide wheel, which has been widely used in sea trials until now, and the guide wheel 16 slides the inside of the circular ring 17 fixed to the outer side of the ship. It is configured to direct the guide wheel 16 in the direction of coming. This structure can achieve the purpose of preventing the twisting of the rope to grab the basket into the ship, but there is a drawback that the whole device is slightly complicated, and a more improved structure is required.

4 is a perspective view illustrating the operation of the towing rope inclination guide wheel 11 of the present invention. The traction rope inclination guide wheel 1 hangs the endless rope 5 to interpose the suspension shaft 19 by the holding arm 18, and is attached to the outer side of the skylight 1 by the holding member 20. have. Towing rope inclination guide wheel 11 is pulled toward the rear of the ship around the axis of the hanging shaft 19 by the tension of the rope is caught on the endless rope 5 at the same time one side is open, thereby inclined obliquely. By the inclination angle of about 30 degrees, the dredger basket 6 is suspended from the front suspension rope 6a and the rear suspension rope 6b in a direction close to the vertical which is about 30 degrees different from the direction of the endless rope 5. As it enters the rope inclination guide wheel 11, as shown in FIG. 4, both ropes are pushed outwards to one side of the guide wheel, and as a result, the basket passes through the outside of the tow rope inclination guide wheel 11 and into the ship. Drawn in.

Compared to the existing structure of FIG. This mechanism is the same for the descending rope guide wheel 15, and the dredger basket 6 enters the sea while attached to the endless rope 5.

An endless rope is attached to the driving device by attaching a bucket or a pressure buoyancy cylinder with two attachment ropes respectively using a ball roller shown in FIGS. 5 and 6 or a horizontal wheel drive wheel shown in FIGS. 7 and 8. (5) is driven. The ball roller has a motor 24, 25 and a ball roller on an axis supported by bearings 22, 23 attached to the holding truss 21, as shown in the front view of FIG. 5 and the side view of FIG. (26) and (27) are attached symmetrically and press the endless rope (5) from both sides by air pressure in the ball to drive the compression friction. Currently manufactured and practical ball rollers have a diameter of 800 mm and a towing force of 8 tons.

As shown in the side view of FIG. 7 and the plan view of FIG. 8, the horizontal towing drive wheel includes a plurality of horizontal towing drive wheels 33, 34, etc., bearings 29, 30 attached to the holding truss 28; Is horizontally held by the lamp and driven by the motors 31, 32, and the like. The endless rope 5 is driven by being wound around the drive wheels 33 and 34 which are horizontal dogs. In this drive, the dredger basket 6 and the pressure-bearing buoy 7 are held horizontally with two hanging ropes, respectively, and the bottom of each of the horizontal dog driving wheels 33 and 34 is guided to pass without any problems. Can be.

The problem is the safe transmission of extremely high tensions in deep sea mining, which requires 100 tons of force to be delivered to the rope in order to achieve a yield rate of 1,000 tons / day. Now, assuming that the ball roller is driven only by a ball roller, towing a ball roller of 800 tons of traction force in series is the sum of the traction forces, and in the case of a horizontal towing drive wheel, it is necessary to wind all six turn drive wheels. As shown in FIG. 7, when half-wound winding is applied to one driving wheel, driving by all 12 driving wheels is required. In the half-cycle winding turn, the towing wheel has a towing force (P) of 180 ° compared to the pressing force (F) in the driving direction (T) of FIG. Becomes two. Considering that 100 tons of towing force is required now, when 8 tons of force is produced per ball roller, it is necessary to tow in 13 series in series as shown in FIG.

Next, towing 100 tons with only horizontal drive wheels requires a total of 6 tons of towing angle, and if you share 0.5 tons with one drive wheel, 12 horizontal drive wheels are needed as shown in FIG. Done. This was experienced in the Hawaiian experiment of the second Gyokuyomaru. However, when combining the advantages of both, it was found that as shown in FIG. 11, a combination of four horizontal driving wheels and one ball roller obtained 16 times the force of the towing force P of the ball roller. If P = 8 tons, 8 x 16 = 128, and 128 tons of towing force will be obtained. Thus, the drive device combining the horizontal drive wheel and the ball roller can make a great contribution to the practical simplification of the drive system.

In addition, ball rollers and horizontal driving wheels are the most important design requirements for the prevention of falling of the endless rope hung in the basket, etc., guide wheels such as the traction rope inclination guide wheel (11) and descent rope instructor guide wheel is necessary for this purpose. FIG. 12 is a front view as seen from the rope travel direction of the dump truss, and FIG. 13 is a side view as seen from a right angle thereof.

The dump truss 13 is installed on the deck of the skylight 1 and is inclined slightly inclined forward, and the guide wheel 35, the inclined guide wheel 36, and the guide wheel 37 are attached thereto. The endless rope 5 is driven while being attached by two hanging ropes, such as a dredger basket 6 attached thereto.

The dredger basket 6 loaded with manganese nodules 9 and minerals collected from the seabed is forward hanging rope when ascending to the inclined guide wheel 36 attached to the top of the dump truss 13 by the guide wheel 35. The dredger basket 6 is raised without dropping the manganese nodules 9 as the contents (6a) are forward (upper). The inclination guide wheel 36 is inclined by the inclined forward inclination of the dump truss 13, and because of the inclination, the front suspension rope 6a is lowered without being caught because it is open on one side past the outside of the inclination guide wheel 36. Go to administration. Next, the rear hanging rope 6b enters the same inclined guide wheel 36 and passes through the same in the same way. In the stroke to the guide wheel 37, the attitude of the basket is upside down, and the dredger basket 6 The manganese nodules 9 naturally fall and are dumped to the mineral storage ports installed on the deck. The big advantage of this dump structure is that it is a mechanism that the basket is upside down in the air. Until now, many bucket dumping structures have been upside down after the basket has slipped on the truck or slide plate. Since it is reversed in the air through the side rather than going up, it has the advantage of low friction and smooth dumping.

The present invention has the effect of economically realizing the industrial mining of manganese nodules existing in the deep seabed.

In deep sea mining, in addition to using the method and apparatus of the present invention, there are a suction pump mining method and a shuttle mining method. Until now, the suction pump mining method has been best studied. This method is mainly carried out in each country by lowering the mining unit price by mass mining method (6,000 tons / day) by suction pump, and it is known that about 30 billion yen of government and private funds were invested in Japan.

However, this mass collection, on the contrary, requires huge capital for the start of the mining business, requiring 100 billion yen on the scale.

In continuous bucket mining, the mining cost is about 20,000 to 50,000 tons of light output, and the mining and refining of 500 to 1000 tons per day is most easily realized.

The mining and refining business can be launched for less than 10 billion yen, which is 1/10 of the suction pump, and the mining unit price can be mined almost equally.

In addition, it is good to increase the number of mining rays in the future expansion of the mining scale. However, in order to achieve a mining speed of 1,000 tons / day, the effect of the present invention is required.

One of them is a combination of a ball roller or a horizontal towing drive wheel that adopts a strong, creep-free nylon or tetron for the endless rope 5 and can drive a bucket or the like to the drive device. By adopting the driving device, it drives without removing the basket etc., and by combining the ball roller and the horizontal towing driving wheel, the number of series required is greatly reduced, and the powerful driving force is transmitted to the endless rope by the compact driving device. Ingots mined by the basket are introduced into the ship by a simple inclined guide wheel, and are vertically inverted and dumped on the dump truss, and also enable economic harvesting of 1,000 tons / day of deep sea manganese nodules into the sea.

In addition, the present invention has an effect that can be applied not only to the mining of the deep sea manganese nodules, but also to the mining of the sea crust, in particular, sand mining and sand mining of the shallow sea.

Claims (2)

Endless ropes (5), drive means for circulating the endless ropes (5) between the mining vessel and the seabed, and the minerals of the seabed when the circulation of the endless ropes (5) is coupled to the endless ropes (5). In the deep-sea minerals mining device comprising a plurality of mining baskets (6) which is collected and transported the minerals on the ship and then re-introduced back to the seabed, the drive means is the driving direction of the endless rope (5) A pair of ball rollers 26 and 27 installed on the ship so as to be in close contact with the endless rope 5 on both sides and driving the endless rope 5 by frictional force with the endless rope 5 at the time of its rotation; It is arranged to rotate horizontally and includes a horizontal traction drive wheels (33, 34) on which the endless rope (5) is wound around a part of the outer periphery, the truss (13) inclined on the mining ship, and the truss (13) Snow at the top And an inclined guide wheel 36 for guiding the endless rope 5 upwardly after the upward movement on the mining vessel, wherein each of the baskets 6 is formed by two hanging ropes 6a and 6b. Coupled to the endless rope 5, the basket 6 is suspended from the hanging ropes 6a when the endless rope 5 passes the ball rollers 26, 27 and the horizontal traction drive wheels 33, 34. 6b) is driven down the ball rollers (26, 27) and the horizontal traction drive wheels (33, 34), and when the endless rope (5) passes the inclined guide wheel (36) The inclined guide wheel 36 is installed to be inclined at a predetermined angle so that the hanging ropes 6a and 6b are not wound around the inclined guide wheel 36, and the endless rope 5 is circulated. When traveling, each of the baskets 6 collected from the seabed and moved on the vessel is moved upward by the inclined guide wheel 36. Deep sea mineral mining device, characterized in that the posture of the basket (6) is inverted when it is moved downward, so that the minerals in the bucket (6) is poured into the storage in the ship. The endless rope (5) according to claim 1, wherein the endless rope (5) has a specific gravity that is heavier than the specific gravity of seawater, and the endless rope (5) is used to float a portion adjacent to the sea bottom so as not to be caught by sea storage seawater when the endless rope (5) runs. Deep sea mineral mining device, characterized in that the pressure-resistant buoyancy tube (7) is coupled to the portion between the basket (6) and the basket (6) by two hanging ropes (7a, 7b).