Abstract
Deep-sea mining activities have lately attracted growing interest. Recent research has led to the development of a hydraulic–mechanical hybrid vertical lifting system for deep-sea mining. Predicting the resistance of vertical plug flow in this system is critical for its engineering design. In this paper, an analytical model was developed to determine the resistance of vertical plug flow in a hydraulic–mechanical hybrid vertical lifting system in the presence of coarse particles. A recent model of the stress transmission ratio for pneumatic plug flow was verified and applied to the proposed model of resistance. In addition, it is considered that the co-existence of turbulent and laminar flows in the fluid flowing through the particles provides the necessary pressure gradient. A test setup was built to measure the resistance of vertical plug flow with/without water, along with varying particle diameters, plug lengths, and lifting speeds. Comparisons between the predictions of the analytical model and experimental measurements showed that they deviated by less than 13.6% on average. This shows that the proposed analytical model can be used to predict the resistance of vertical plug flow involving coarse particles.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 118253 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Ocean Engineering |
| Volume | 308 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2024 |
Bibliographical note
Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-careOtherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.
Keywords
- Bulk solids
- Deep-sea mining
- Plug flow
- Two-phase flow
- Vertical lifting