CN113187483B

CN113187483B - Underwater mining vehicle

Info

Publication number: CN113187483B
Application number: CN202110738153.6A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 陈向东; 唐新孝; 李建勋; 刘少军; 冉志煌; 王中念; 阳建军; 斯蒂芬·斯坦尼斯拉夫·卡普斯尼亚克; 西蒙·卡尔·格雷厄姆; 尼古拉斯·威廉·雷德利
Original assignee: Jinao Deep Sea Equipment Technology Shenzhen Co ltd
Current assignee: Jinao Deep Sea Equipment Technology Shenzhen Co ltd
Priority date: 2021-06-30
Filing date: 2021-06-30
Publication date: 2021-09-17
Anticipated expiration: 2041-06-30
Also published as: CN113187483A

Abstract

The invention relates to an underwater mining vehicle which comprises a mining vehicle body moving under water, wherein the mining vehicle body is provided with a collecting port and an abundance detecting device, and the abundance detecting device is arranged on the outer wall of the mining vehicle body and is used for detecting the abundance of mineral products in a mining area; the mining rake device is arranged on the side surface of the collecting port and used for pushing the ores to the collecting port; the underwater particle separating device is arranged on the mine car body and is used for separating sediments in the ores; the diffusion device is arranged on one side, deviating from the collecting port, of the mine car body, and the diffusion device is used for buffering sediments in the underwater particle separation device and then discharging the sediments to the sea bottom surface. The problem of the in-process that current mixture promoted takes out a large amount of silt and influences the mineral and send out the efficiency on sea, has increased the turbidity in the water around to lead to the operation visibility of mining car lower, be unfavorable for the operation to the mining car is solved.

Description

Underwater mining vehicle

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of underwater mining, in particular to an underwater mining vehicle.

Background

Abundant mineral resources are stored in the ocean bottom, and as scientific and technological progress and easily-mined mineral resources on land gradually decrease, undersea mining increasingly draws attention.

When the existing submarine mining excavating machine carries out submarine mining operation, a conveying device is generally directly adopted to convey a submarine excavated mixture. This conveys a mixture of mineral products and sludge. Lifting the mixture to the sea surface, and then carrying out separation treatment on the sea surface. This carries a large amount of silt out of the process of lifting the mixture, and the entrained silt not only affects the efficiency of the removal of the minerals from the surface. And a large amount of silt of bringing over discharges to the bottom, leads to by the discharge deposit velocity of flow great, has increased the turbidity in the surrounding water body to lead to the operation visibility of mining vehicle to be lower, be unfavorable for the operation to mining vehicle.

Accordingly, the prior art is yet to be improved and developed.

Disclosure of Invention

In view of the above-mentioned deficiencies of the prior art, the present application aims to provide an underwater mining vehicle, which aims to solve the problems that the efficiency of delivering minerals out of the sea surface is affected by carrying a large amount of sludge in the lifting process of the existing mixture, and the flow rate of the discharged sediments is large due to the direct pumping of the sediments, and the turbidity in the surrounding water body is increased, so that the operating visibility of the mining vehicle is low, and the operation of the mining vehicle is not facilitated.

The technical scheme of the invention is as follows:

the utility model provides an underwater mining vehicle, includes the mine car body at submarine removal, seted up on the mine car body and collected the mouth, wherein, underwater mining vehicle still includes:

the abundance detection device is arranged on the outer wall of the mine car body and is used for detecting the abundance of mineral products in a mining area;

a mining rake device disposed to the side of the gathering port and adapted to push ore towards the gathering port;

the underwater particle separating device is arranged on the mine car body and is used for separating sediments in ores;

the diffusion device is arranged on one side, away from the collecting port, of the mine car body, and the diffusion device is used for buffering sediments in the underwater particle separation device and then discharging the sediments to the sea bottom surface.

Optionally, the abundance detecting device comprises:

sonar detection means provided toward a moving direction of the mine car body and for detecting an ore distribution density by sonar;

the structured light imaging device is arranged towards the moving direction of the mine car body and is used for detecting the ore distribution density by shooting images;

and the control device is respectively in communication connection with the sonar detection device and the structured light imaging device and is used for controlling the mining speed of the mine car body according to the ore distribution density.

Optionally, the mining rake apparatus comprises:

the rake body assembly extends along the horizontal direction and is arranged on the side surface of the collecting opening, and the rake body assembly comprises a first spiral part;

a rotating component which is connected to the harrow body component and drives the first spiral part to rotate around the extending direction of the harrow body component, and the first spiral part is used for pushing the ore to the collecting opening through rotation.

Optionally, the rake body assembly further comprises a main rotating shaft, one end of the main rotating shaft is connected with the rotating assembly, and the other end of the main rotating shaft extends towards a direction away from the collecting port;

the first spiral part comprises a plurality of first brazes which are arranged on the outer wall of the main rotating shaft at intervals along a spiral track.

Optionally, a second spiral part is further disposed on the main rotating shaft;

the distance from the outer edge of the second spiral part to the central axis of the main rotating shaft is smaller than the distance from the outer edge of the first spiral part to the central axis of the main rotating shaft.

Optionally, the mining rake device further comprises a swinging assembly, wherein the swinging assembly is arranged on the side surface of the collecting port, is connected with the rake body assembly and drives the rake body assembly to swing on a horizontal plane or/and swing up and down;

the moving assembly is movably arranged on the side surface of the collecting opening and drives the rake body assembly to move in the up-and-down direction.

Optionally, the underwater particle separation device comprises:

the conveying mechanism is used for directionally conveying the slurry mixture;

and the suction mechanism is arranged on one side of the conveying direction of the conveying mechanism and is used for sucking part of ore and sludge in the ore and sludge mixture on the conveying mechanism.

Optionally, the transport mechanism comprises:

the belt wheels are rotatably arranged at two ends in the conveying direction;

the conveying belt is sleeved on the belt wheels at the two ends and driven by the belt wheels to circularly move;

the baffles are arranged on the panel of the conveying belt at intervals;

the suction mechanism includes:

the mud suction main pipeline extends along the conveying direction;

the mud suction branch pipes are arranged at intervals along the conveying direction and communicated with the main mud suction pipeline, and the openings of the mud suction branch pipes face the panel of the conveying belt;

the ejector is communicated with the main sludge suction pipeline, and the main sludge suction pipeline generates suction force through the starting of the ejector.

Optionally, the diffusion device comprises a housing, a diffusion channel is arranged in the housing, the diffusion channel is used for discharging the sediments, and the cross-sectional area of the diffusion channel along the direction of discharging the sediments is gradually increased;

the shell is movably provided with a swing adjusting assembly, an adjusting channel is arranged in the swing adjusting assembly, and the adjusting channel is communicated with the output end of the diffusion channel.

Optionally, the underwater mining vehicle further comprises a lifting device arranged on the vehicle body and used for pumping out the ore separated by the underwater particle separation device.

Has the advantages that: according to the underwater mining vehicle, the mine vehicle body moves on the water bottom surface, and the ore density of a certain area in the moving direction of the mine vehicle body on the seabed is accurately obtained through the water surface ore data acquired by the plugging detection device, so that the moving speed of the mine vehicle body is controlled, and the mining speed is reasonably controlled according to the ore nodule condition of the mining area. Therefore, the mining equipment can be fully utilized, and the mining efficiency is improved. The ore on the side surface of the collecting port is dug up and pushed to the collecting port through the mining rake device, and the ore on the water bottom surface is collected through the collecting port, so that mining is carried out; the area of ore that can be collected by the collection port during advancement of the mining vehicle includes not only the area in the direction of advancement of the collection port, but also the area covered by the rake body assembly. Therefore, in one-time movement of the mining vehicle, ores in more areas can be collected, and the advantages of large collection range and high mining efficiency are achieved. The sludge (sediment) in the sludge mixture is separated from the ore by the underwater particle separation device, and the ore is concentrated and lifted to the sea surface when being conveyed to the other end. Like this, promote the in-process and can not smuggle a large amount of silt secretly, can only extract the ore, improve the mineral and see off the efficiency on sea, handle a minute amount of silt on the sea moreover, alleviateed desilting work greatly. In addition, the diffusion device receives the sediment conveyed from the underwater particle separation device, the flow direction of the sediment is guided in the diffusion device, the sediment flows along the diffusion channel, the speed of the water flow with the sediment is reduced, the speed of all particles is reduced, and the sediment is rapidly precipitated. The decelerated and diverted sediment water flow is discharged again, and the turbidity in the surrounding water body caused by the discharge can be reduced, so that the problem that the operation of the mining vehicle is not facilitated due to low operation visibility of the mining vehicle is solved. And through the underwater particle separation device and the diffusion device, separation of ores and sediments is realized underwater, useless sediments are buffered and then directly discharged to the sea bottom surface, a large amount of sediments do not need to be lifted to the ore ship, and the mining efficiency is improved.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic structural view of an embodiment of the underwater mining vehicle of the invention;

FIG. 2 is an enlarged view of portion A of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a schematic illustration of the construction of a mining rake assembly of an embodiment of the underwater mining vehicle of the present invention;

fig. 4 is a left side view of one configuration of a rake body assembly of an embodiment of the underwater mining vehicle of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a mining analysis of an embodiment of a mining rake assembly in an underwater mining vehicle of the present invention as applied to area A and area B;

FIG. 6 is a front elevational view of one construction of a rake body assembly of an embodiment of the mining rake assembly in the underwater mining vehicle of the present invention;

FIG. 7 is a front elevational view of an alternative construction of a rake body assembly of an embodiment of the mining rake assembly in the underwater mining vehicle of the present invention;

FIG. 8 is a front elevational view of a third configuration of a rake body assembly of an embodiment of the mining rake assembly in the underwater mining vehicle of the present invention;

FIG. 9 is a schematic view of the underwater particle separating apparatus in the underwater mining vehicle of the present invention;

FIG. 10 is a partial schematic view of the underwater particle separating device in the underwater mining vehicle of the present invention;

FIG. 11 is a schematic view of the installation of the underwater particle separating device in the underwater mining vehicle of the present invention;

FIG. 12 is a cross-sectional view of an embodiment of the diffusion device in the underwater mining vehicle of the present invention in a state;

FIG. 13 is a cross-sectional view of an embodiment of a diffusion device in an underwater mining vehicle of the invention in another state;

FIG. 14 is a cross-sectional view from another perspective of an embodiment of a diffusion device in the underwater mining vehicle of the present invention;

FIG. 15 is a path diagram of an application of an embodiment of the underwater mining vehicle of the invention;

FIG. 16 is a schematic view of an embodiment of the abundance detecting apparatus of the underwater mining vehicle of the present invention;

FIG. 17 is a top view of an embodiment of the abundance detection apparatus of the present invention applied to a mining truck;

FIG. 18 is a schematic view of the working principle of a structured light imaging device of the abundance detection device in the present invention;

FIG. 19 is a schematic view showing the installation dimensions of a structured light imaging device according to an embodiment of the abundance detecting means of the present invention;

fig. 20 is a comparison graph of the detection results of the structured light imaging device of the embodiment of the abundance detecting device of the present invention.

Description of reference numerals: 10. a mine car body; 11. a collection port; 100. a mining vessel; 1000. an abundance detecting device; 1120. a support; 1121. a connecting rod; 1122. a support rail; 1200. a sonar detection device; 1210. a front-side sonar; 1220. a side sonar; 1300. a structured light imaging device; 1310. an illuminating lamp; 1320. a camera; 1410. a velocimeter; 1420. an underwater positioning device; 2000. a mining rake assembly; 2100. a rake body assembly; 2110. a main rotating shaft; 2120. a first spiral portion; 2121. a first rake nail; 2130. a second rotating section; 2131. a second rake nail; 2132. a rotating blade; 2200. a rotating assembly; 2300. a swing assembly; 2310. a swing bracket; 2320. a driving oil cylinder; 2500. a moving assembly; 2510. a hydraulic lifting mechanism; 3000. an underwater particle separation device; 3100. a transport mechanism; 3110. a pulley; 3120. a conveyor belt; 3121. a panel; 3130. a baffle plate; 3131. water permeable holes; 3140. an eccentric roller; 3150. a jet flow conduit; 3200. a suction mechanism; 3210. a mud suction main pipeline; 3220. mud sucking and pipe distributing; 3230. an ejector; 3300. a housing; 3310. a delivery channel; 3320. a mixture inlet; 3330. an ore outlet; 3400. a cleaning mechanism; 3410. cleaning the spray head; 3420. a water supply pipe; 3510. a mine car frame; 4000. a diffusion device; 4200. a diffusion housing; 4210. an input section; 4211. a feed cavity; 4220. a buffer section; 4221. a diffusion channel; 4222. a front baffle; 4223. a tailgate; 4224. a side baffle; 4230. a discharge unit; 4231. a discharge passage; 4300. an input pipe; 4400. a swing adjustment assembly; 4410. adjusting the channel; 4420. a rotating shaft; 4421. a front rotating shaft; 4422. a rear rotating shaft; 4430. a swing arm bracket; 4431. a front swing arm; 4432. a rear swing arm; 4433. connecting the bottom plate; 4440. a flexible wrapping layer; 4500. a connecting member; 4510. a support frame; 4520. and a through hole.

Detailed Description

To facilitate an understanding of the present application, the present application will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings. Preferred embodiments of the present application are given in the accompanying drawings. This application may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete.

Unless defined otherwise, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this application belongs. The terminology used herein in the description of the present application is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the application.

As shown in fig. 1, in the embodiment of the present application, there is provided an underwater mining vehicle comprising a moving vehicle body 10, the vehicle body 10 is provided with a collection port 11, and a conventional excavation device is also provided at the collection port 11, for the convenience of structural description, the vehicle body 10 is moved in the front direction and mining is performed with the forward and backward direction being the front-rear direction, the direction perpendicular to the front-rear direction in the horizontal plane being the left-right direction, and the direction perpendicular to the horizontal plane being the vertical direction, the collection port 11 being located in front of the vehicle body 10. The underwater mining vehicle further comprises: abundance detecting device 1000, mining harrow device 2000, underwater particle separation device 3000 and diffusion device 4000. The abundance detecting device 1000 is arranged on the outer wall of the mine car body 10 and is used for detecting the abundance of mineral products in a mining area. The mining rake device 2000 is provided at the side of the gathering port 11 and serves to push ore toward the gathering port 11. The underwater particle separating device 3000 is provided on the mine car body 10 and serves to separate deposits in the ore. The diffusion device 4000 is arranged on the side of the mine car body 10 away from the collecting port 11, and the diffusion device 4000 is used for discharging sediment in the underwater particle separation device 3000 into the sea floor after buffering.

Among the above-mentioned scheme, remove at the bottom surface through mine car body 10, the surface of water ore data that acquires through shutoff detection device to accurate obtain the ore density of certain region on the 10 moving direction of mine car body in seabed, thereby control mine car body 10's the moving speed according to the condition of the ore nodule in mining area, reasonable control mining speed. Therefore, the mining equipment can be fully utilized, and the mining efficiency is improved. Mining is performed by digging up the ore on the side of the collecting port 11 and pushing the ore to the collecting port 11 through the mining rake device 2000, and collecting the ore on the water bottom surface through the collecting port 11; the area of ore that can be collected by the collection port 11 during advancement of the mining vehicle includes not only the area in the direction of advancement of the collection port 11, but also the area covered by the rake assembly 2100. Therefore, in one-time movement of the mining vehicle, ores in more areas can be collected, and the advantages of large collection range and high mining efficiency are achieved. The separation of the sludge (sediment) from the ore in the slurry mixture is achieved by the underwater particle separation device 3000, and the ore is collected and lifted to the sea surface when being transported to the other end. Like this, promote the in-process and can not smuggle a large amount of silt secretly, only extract the ore, improved the mineral and sent out the efficiency on sea, handle a minute amount of silt on the sea moreover, alleviateed desilting work greatly. In addition, the sediment conveyed from the underwater particle separation device 3000 is received by the diffusion device 4000, the flow direction of the sediment is guided in the diffusion device 4000, the sediment flows along the diffusion channel, the speed of the water flow with the sediment is reduced, and therefore the speed of all particles is reduced, and the sediment is rapidly precipitated. The decelerated and shunted sediment water flow is discharged again, and the turbidity in the surrounding water body caused by the discharge can be reduced, so that the problem that the operation of the mining vehicle is not facilitated due to low operation visibility of the mining vehicle is avoided, and the problem that the operation of the mining vehicle is not facilitated due to low operation visibility of the mining vehicle is avoided. And the underwater particle separation device 3000 and the diffusion device 4000 separate the ores and the sediments underwater, buffer the useless sediments and directly discharge the sediments to the sea floor, so that a large amount of sediments do not need to be lifted to the ore ship, and the mining efficiency is improved.

On the basis of the above scheme, the specific structure of this embodiment is:

as shown in fig. 1 and 2, the mining rake device 2000 in this embodiment specifically includes: rake assembly 2100, rotating assembly 2200. The rake assembly 2100 is extended and disposed at a side of the collecting port 11 in a horizontal direction, and the rake assembly 2100 includes a first screw portion 2120. Taking the example that only one rake assembly 2100 is provided, the rake assembly 2100 is provided on one side of the collecting port 11 in the left-right direction, and the rake assembly 2100 is provided to extend in the direction away from the collecting port 11 in the horizontal plane. When the rake assembly 2100 is swung out of the area directly in front of the collection port 11, the area swept by the collection port 11 is increased due to the area swept by the rake assembly 2100 as the mining vehicle advances, thereby expanding the collection range of ore collected by the mining vehicle. The rotating assembly 2200 is connected to the rake body assembly 2100, and drives the first screw portion 2120 to rotate around the extending direction of the rake body assembly 2100, and the first screw portion 2120 rotates clockwise or counterclockwise towards the collecting port 11, so as to excavate ore from the sea bottom surface and push the ore to the collecting port through the rotating spiral track. Specifically, the direction opposite to the collecting port is used, the left-hand side is used as the left side, and the right-hand side is used as the right side. That is when the rake assembly 2100 is positioned to the left, it is rotated anticlockwise from the distal end towards the mouth, looking in a direction towards the mouth 11, so that the first helical portion 2120 can scoop out ore from the sea floor. That is when the rake assembly 2100 is positioned to the right, it is rotated clockwise, as viewed from the distal end towards the mouth in a direction towards the mouth 11, so that the first helical portion 2120 can dig ore from the sea floor. The excavated ore is pushed to a collecting port through a spiral track formed by rotation. Thus, by arranging the rake assembly 2100 extending horizontally to one side of said collecting opening 11, the rake assembly 2100 is swung at an angle in front of the side of the collecting opening 11, and the rake assembly 2100 covers a larger difference than the area covered by the collecting opening 11 when the mining vehicle is advancing. The swivel assembly 2200 is attached to the rake assembly 2100 and drives the first screw 2120 to rotate about the extension direction of the rake assembly 2100, the rotating first screw 2120 lifts the large-sized nodule on the seabed from the sediment, the swivel assembly 2200 rotates the first screw 2120 clockwise or counterclockwise toward the collecting port 11, the first screw 2120 pushes/rolls the stuck nodule toward the middle of the running path of the mining vehicle, i.e., in front of the collecting port 11 of the mining vehicle, thereby collecting the nodule mineral through the collecting port 11. The area of ore that can be collected by the collection port 11 during advancement of the mining vehicle includes not only the area in the direction of advancement of the collection port 11, but also the area covered by the rake assembly 2100. Therefore, in one-time movement of the mining vehicle, ores in more areas can be collected, and the advantages of large collection range and high mining efficiency are achieved.

As shown in fig. 1-3, the mining rake assembly further includes a moving assembly 2500, the moving assembly 2500 being movably disposed at one side of the collection port 11. In particular the travelling assembly 2500 has one end hinged to the mining vehicle and the other end extending in a fore-and-aft direction to the front of the mine vehicle body 10 and driving the rake assembly 2100. As shown in fig. 8, the moving assembly 2500 is connected to the rake assembly 2100 and drives the rake assembly 2100 to move in the up-down direction. The moving assembly 2500 is provided with a hydraulic lifting mechanism 2510, the rear end of the moving assembly 2500 is hinged on the mine car body 10, the hydraulic lifting mechanism is arranged on the mine car body 10 and connected with the moving assembly, and thus the moving assembly 2500 can move up and down along one end (rotating around the hinged position of the rear end) of the collecting port 11 under the pushing of the hydraulic lifting mechanism 2510. The rake body assembly can be raised up or lowered down by the moving assembly. The rake body assemblies are at different heights. Thereby, it is possible to realize that the rake body assembly 2100 is stowed up in the upward direction, reducing the length of the mining vehicle in the fore-and-aft direction, which minimizes the storage footprint of the mining vehicle, thereby reducing the size of the mining vehicle deployment and recovery equipment and the deck space requirements on the surface mother ship or the deployment and recovery platform.

The mining rake assembly may also be used without the moving assembly 2500 so that the rake body assembly 2100 is fixed in height and can also collect ore.

As shown in fig. 1 and 2, the rake assembly 2100 may be lifted up by a large amount in the vertical direction by the movement assembly 2500 as it is, thereby achieving a stowing function. The swing assembly 2300 may be further disposed on the moving assembly 2500, so that the swing assembly 2300 swings on a horizontal plane or/and in the up-and-down direction, and when swinging in the up-and-down direction, the rake assembly 2100 is lifted up or lowered down to a small extent, so that the swing assembly 2300 allows the rake assembly 2100 to have a certain movement space in the up-and-down direction. The ability to remain close to the ground with varying seafloor shapes ensures that continued mining/separation efficiency is maintained across the mine sweep width (from right to left) of the mine. When swinging on a horizontal plane, namely, the rake body assembly 2100 swings left and right, the unfolding angle of the rake body assembly 2100 at the collecting port can be adjusted, and the mining requirements are met.

The swing assembly 2300 is disposed at the left and right side of the collecting port 11 and connected to the rake assembly 2100. The swing assembly 2300 is disposed on an end of the moving assembly 2500 facing the collection port 11. Different structures are provided according to various functions of the swing assembly 2300.

In the first structure, as shown in fig. 1 and fig. 2, when the swing assembly 2300 only swings up and down, the swing assembly 2300 includes a swing bracket 2310 and a driving cylinder 2320, both ends of the swing bracket 2310 are hinged to the moving assembly 2500, and one end of the driving cylinder 2320 is connected to the moving assembly 2500 and the other end is hinged to the swing bracket 2310. The rake assembly 2100 and swivel assembly 2200 are attached to the swing frame 2310. The driving cylinder 2320 is activated to push the swing frame 2310 to rotate around the horizontal axis, so that the swing frame 2310 rotates up and down, and the swing assembly 2300 drives the rotating assembly 2200 and the rake body assembly 2100 to move up and down.

In a second structure, which can be obtained by the first structural variation in fig. 2, when the swing assembly 2300 only swings left and right, the swing assembly 2300 includes a swing bracket 2310 and a driving cylinder 2320, one end of the swing bracket 2310 near the collection port 11 is hinged to the moving assembly 2500, and the other end is movably disposed. One end of the driving oil cylinder 2320 is hinged to the moving assembly 2500, and the other end is hinged to one end of the swing bracket 2310 away from the collecting port 11; and the hinge point of the driving cylinder 2320 and the moving assembly 2500 and the hinge point of the driving cylinder 2320 and the swing frame 2310 are movably arranged (such as a fisheye hinge), and the rake body assembly 2100 and the rotating assembly 2200 are connected to the swing frame 2310. The driving cylinder 2320 is actuated to push the swing frame 2310 to rotate around the hinge point, so that the other end of the swing frame 2310 swings in the left-right direction, so that the swing frame 2310 can swing left and right, thereby driving the rotating assembly 2200 and the rake body assembly 2100 to swing left and right through the swing assembly 2300. The side-to-side swinging rake assembly 2100 can adjust the opening angle in the horizontal plane.

In a third form (not shown in the drawings), the structure of the swing assembly that swings up and down and the structure of the swing assembly that swings left and right can be combined, and with reference to the above two forms, for example, based on the structure of the swing assembly that swings up and down, the structure of the swing assembly that swings left and right and the driving cylinder in the structure of the swing assembly that swings left and right can be connected to the swing bracket in the first structure. The present configuration is easy to think of from the above two configurations, and is not specifically illustrated. It is easy to think that the oscillating mechanism can also take the form of an electric motor drive, which rotates through a certain angle.

As shown in fig. 2, the rotating assembly 2200 includes a rotating motor, and the rake body assembly 2100 is coupled to the rotating motor through a coupling, so that the rotating motor drives the rake body assembly 2100 to rotate, and further drives the first spiral part 2120 to rotate. The first helical portion 2120 is helical and when the first helical portion 2120 is rotated clockwise in a direction towards the collecting opening 11, the nodule is pushed/rolled towards the collecting opening 11 of the mining vehicle.

In an alternative embodiment, as shown in fig. 3, the swing assembly 2300 may also allow the rake assembly 2100 to be deployed at different vertical angles, i.e., the rake assembly 2100 may be adjustable from vertical by an angle a1, where a1 is 0-180 °. This provides the rake body assembly 2100 with the ability to remain in close proximity to the ground with varying seafloor shapes to ensure continued mining/separation efficiency along the mine sweep width (from right to left) of the mining vehicle.

As shown in fig. 2 and 3, the rake body assembly 2100 in this embodiment further includes a main rotating shaft 2110, and one end of the main rotating shaft 2110 is connected to the rotating assembly 2200, and the other end extends away from the collecting port 11. In the example where the rake assembly 2100 is positioned on the left side of the collection port 11, the main rotation shaft 2110 may be swung left and right or/and up and down by driving the swing assembly 2300, and the main rotation shaft 2110 may be swung left. The first screw portion 2120 includes a plurality of first branchers 2121, and the plurality of first branchers 2121 are provided at intervals along a spiral track on the outer wall of the main rotating shaft 2110. The first spikes 2121 are generally provided long so that when the main rotary shaft 2110 rotates, the first spikes 2121 are inserted deep into the sludge to dig the nodules of large size from the sediment (sludge), and when rotating, the helically arranged first spikes 2121 facilitate the transportation of the nodules of large size, pushing them from the side away from the collecting port 11 to the middle of the collecting port 11. The first spikes 2121 are spaced from the first spikes 2121 such that fine particles and silt can escape from the gaps between adjacent first spikes 2121 without bringing a significant amount of silt and sand to the collection port 11. It is easy to think that the first helical part 2120 can be directly made of helical blades, but the larger helical blades can bring a lot of sludge while collecting ore.

The main shaft 2110 may be solid or cylindrical, depending on the amount of load required for use. The cylindrical main rotating shaft 2110 may be filled with biodegradable grease for deep deployment underwater, or may be filled with a lightweight incompressible material, which increases structural strength. In another cylindrical main rotating shaft 2110, a through hole is formed in an outer wall of the main rotating shaft 2110, and water is introduced into the through hole, thereby eliminating the effect of deep water pressure.

As shown in fig. 3 and 4, the main rotating shaft 2110 in this embodiment is further provided with a second rotating portion 2130, and a distance (H2) from an outer edge of the second screw portion to an outer wall surface of the main rotating shaft 2110 is smaller than a distance (H1) from an outer edge of the first screw portion 2120 to the outer wall surface of the main rotating shaft 2110. Second rotating portion 2130 has a shorter length and when rake assembly 2100 is positioned on the seabed the gap between the top end of second rotating portion 2130 to the seabed surface is relatively small, so that small size minerals do not leak out of the gap and can be used to collect smaller size minerals. This allows for the selective extraction of polymetallic nodules (or manganese nodules) from the bottom small-particle size sediment.

Usually the abundance of the distribution of nodules on the seafloor varies with location, and the shape of the nodules is roughly spheroid, ellipsoid or sheet. They are often partially trapped in finer seafloor sediments. Usually the size of the nodules is below 15 cm in diameter, and occasionally there are oversized nodules-usually connected nodules. It is envisioned that the rake body assembly 2100 with only the first rake nails 2121 (longer rake nails) is used to collect typical nodule size components encountered in a typical mine, while the use of a rake nail pattern with the first and second

helical portions

2120, 2120 is suitable for mines with the same large-size nodules and also with a large dispersion of smaller available nodules.

As shown in fig. 5, two curves represent the ore size distribution in the areas a and B, respectively, and the distance from the outer edge of the first helical part 2120 to the outer wall surface of the main rotating shaft 2110 is greater than 30 mm in this embodiment; the distance from the outer edge of the second spiral part to the outer wall surface of the main rotating shaft 2110 is less than 30 mm, and may be set to 14-16 mm. When collection is performed using only the rake assembly 2100 that carries the first helical portion 2120, up to 50% of nodules will be missed in zone a, and application to zone B will collect substantially all nodules. If the rake assembly 2100 with both the first helix 2120 and the second helix is applied to zone a, all nodules in zone a can be collected, as well as all nodules in zone B.

In a specific structure, the second spiral part may take various forms.

As shown in fig. 6, the first form: the second spiral portion includes only the second rake 2131, and a plurality of the second rake 2131 are spaced along a spiral locus. The second rake 2131 is arranged on the helical trajectory of the first rake 2121, i.e. the second rake 2131 may be arranged between two first rake 2121 that are adjacent on the helical trajectory. If the size range of the mineral being collected is large, i.e. the collection area has both large and small sized minerals, then the rake body assembly 2100 collects the large mineral as it is collected by the first rake 2121 which is longer in length and the second rake 2131 which is shorter in length is used to collect the smaller sized mineral. In this case, the minimum cut-off size of the mineral can be optimized. This will maximize the collection of nodules specific to a particular value (or minimum size) of mineral size.

As shown in fig. 7, the second form: the second screw portion includes a rotating blade 2132, the rotating blade 2132 is spirally wound on the main rotating shaft 2110, and the first spikes 2121 are distributed on the outer wall of the rotating blade 2132. Specifically, the first brads 2121 may be welded to the outer edge of the rotating blades 2132, so that the length of the outer side of the rotating blades 2132 is increased to increase the length of the first brads 2121, thereby saving material and facilitating production. In addition, the first rake nail 2121 can be welded to the main rotating shaft 2110 and the rotating blade 2132, which increases the structural strength of the rotating blade 2132 and the first rake nail 2121, so as to enhance the bearing capacity of the whole rake body assembly. Also, the height of the rotating blades 2132 below the first spikes 2121 during rotation ensures that smaller skin nodules can be collected.

As shown in fig. 8, the third form: the second screw part includes a rotary blade 2132 and a second rake pin 2131, the rotary blade 2132 is spirally wound on the main rotating shaft 2110, the first rake pin 2121 is distributed on the outer wall of the rotary blade 2132, and the second rake pin 2131 is welded on the outer wall of the rotary blade 2132. Likewise, the distance from the second rake 2131 to the outer wall of the main rotation shaft 2110 is less than the length of the first rake 2121 to the main rotation shaft 2110. The rake body component in the form is stable in structure, saves materials and can collect smaller surface nodules.

In the above forms, the center line of the second rake 2131 may be perpendicular to the central axis of the rotation shaft 110, that is, the second rake 2131 and the first rake are both disposed on the outer wall of the rotation shaft 110 along the radial direction of the rotation shaft 110. While the midline of the second rake pin 2131 in this embodiment is obliquely arranged to the cross-section of the main rotation shaft 2110. Like this promote through the slope of second staple 2131 to the ore of tiny particle, enable the tiny particle ore and remove the centre of collecting opening 11 along the helix of slope, outside the difficult tiny particle mineral that makes is pushed away the collecting region, more thorough to the ore of collecting region collection.

As shown in fig. 2 and 3, two rake body assemblies 2100, two rotating assemblies 2200 and two swinging assemblies 2300 are provided in the present embodiment, and the two rake body assemblies 2100 are respectively located on both sides of the collecting port 11 in the left-right direction. The rake body assemblies 2100 on the left and right sides may be deployed to the left and right sides, respectively. The two sided rake body assembly 2100 further increases the area of the catchment area, collecting more ore at a time. The rake body assemblies 2100 on the left and right sides may be deployed at different vertical angles to provide the ability to maintain close proximity to the ground with varying seafloor geometry to ensure continued mining/separation efficiency along the mine sweep width (from right to left) of the mining vehicle.

When the rake body assemblies 2100 on the left and right are rotated simultaneously, the first and

second spikes

2121, 2131 apply a force and velocity to the nodule generally in a direction perpendicular to the main axis of rotation 2110 as the helical first and

second spikes

2121, 2131 contact the nodule. When a second set of spikes or continuous helical blades is used, the helix itself moves the mineral towards the middle of the mining vehicle, the minerals on the left and right sides are drawn towards the middle of the collection port 11, and the movement of the rake body assembly 2100 moves the nodule towards the collection port 11 in the middle of the machine. Due to the gap between the first and

second spikes

2121 and 2131, during rotation of the rake, although some unwanted material is collected by the rake body assembly 2100 towards the collection port 11, it is possible that in each subsequent rotation it will be missed by the spikes and undersized material will pass through the gap between the spikes and be left behind on the sea surface. An oversized object (or nodule) will not pass due to the limitation of the spacing between adjacent spikes on the helical trajectory. With the combined arrangement between the pitch of the spikes, the variable travel speed of the mining vehicle and the variable rotational speed of the rotary assembly 2200, the local mineral abundance range can be optimally matched. Depending on the local mineral abundance range, the travel speed may be automatically adjusted to match the mineral abundance. And intelligent mining is realized.

In this embodiment the required nodules or particles are collected and collected by the mining rake assembly into a heap and the vast majority of the unwanted sediment is left on the seafloor by the gaps between the spikes. Therefore, the mining rake device can simultaneously separate and collect ore particles, namely, the ore and the sediment are separated while the ore is collected, and the mining efficiency is improved.

In another function, the mining rake assembly is adapted and the height of the first helical portion 2120 from the surface of the seabed can be changed by rotating the assembly 2200, and different functions can be realized, such as raising the height of the rake body assembly 2100 from the seabed and realizing underwater rock removal function when the first helical portion 2120 is rotated counterclockwise towards the collecting port 11. On the way the mining vehicle is advanced, unwanted rocks are removed from the intended underwater trenching path by swinging the rake assembly 2100.

The rake assembly 2100 is the primary ground engaging tool in the front of the underwater mining vehicle. The rake assembly 2100 enables a mining vehicle to selectively extract and concentrate the tubercular material from the finer sediments for subsequent collection and disposal. When the rake body assemblies 2100 on both sides are deployed by the swing assembly 2300, the mining vehicle can achieve a wider sweep width than would otherwise be the case. When not mining, the rake body assemblies 2100 on both sides are lifted upward by the moving assembly and placed in the upper direction of the mining car body. This minimises the storage footprint of the mining vehicle, reducing the size of the mining vehicle deployment and recovery equipment and the deck space requirements on the surface mother vessel or on the deployment and recovery platform.

As shown in fig. 1 and 2, the present mining rake assembly employs a pair of rake body assemblies 2100 (rotary helical rakes) mounted on a movable underwater mining vehicle that provides precise directional control. The tool increases the sweeping and collecting width of the vehicle, and the valuable ores are collected in front of the collecting port 11 in the middle of the mining vehicle, so that the valuable ores are extracted at one time. The tool may also be used as the first part of a two-pass extraction system. In this case, the minerals are left at the sea floor (or bottom of the inland body of water) ready for subsequent collection. In either case, the tool will increase the amount of target mineral collected and reduce the proportion of unwanted sludge or sediment. This allows for more efficient extraction of minerals, reducing on-board waste treatment and other downstream processing. The use of such a tool is not limited to mineral collection but can be used to separate any material of varying size, for example it can be used for the collection of underwater contaminants or the cleaning of spilled material.

As shown in fig. 1 and 9, the mixture entering the collection port 11 can be sent to an underwater particle separation device 3000. The underwater particle separation apparatus 3000 includes a transport mechanism 3100, and a suction mechanism 3200. The transport mechanism 3100 is used for directional transport of the slurry mixture, and in particular, for convenience of structural description in this embodiment, reference is made to the slurry mixture being transported from front to rear. The suction mechanism 3200 is arranged at one side of the conveying direction of the conveying mechanism 3100, and the suction mechanism 3200 is used for sucking part of small-fraction ore and sludge in the slurry mixture on the conveying mechanism 3100. The suction mechanism 3200 can be arranged on the upper side, the lower side, the left side or/and the right side of the conveying mechanism 3100, and all the suction mechanisms can realize the function of sucking part of the small-fraction ores and sludges in the slurry mixture. In order to make the suction effect more excellent, the suction mechanism 3200 of the present embodiment is provided on the upper side of the conveying mechanism.

By the above scheme, the slurry mixture is firstly concentrated at one end of the transfer mechanism 3100, the transfer mechanism 3100 is started, and the slurry mixture is directionally conveyed to the other end through the transfer mechanism 3100. During the process that the slurry mixture is conveyed along the conveying direction, the suction mechanism 3200 positioned at one side of the conveying mechanism 3100 is started, and the started suction mechanism 3200 generates suction force for sucking part of the small-sized ore and the sludge in the slurry mixture on the conveying mechanism 3100. The sludge in the mixture on the transmission mechanism 3100 is sucked away by the sucking mechanism 3200, so that the sludge and the ore in the sludge mixture are separated, and when the ore is conveyed to the other end, the ore is concentrated and then lifted to the sea surface. Like this, promote the in-process and can not smuggle a large amount of silt secretly, only extract the ore, improved the mineral and sent out the efficiency on sea, handle a minute amount of silt on the sea moreover, alleviateed desilting work greatly. In addition, the suction mechanism 3200 can suck out smaller ore fractions, and larger ore fractions are left on the conveying mechanism 3100 due to insufficient suction force. This also enables the function of sorting the ore particles. The small-sized grade ore sucked by the suction mechanism 3200 may be further separated by installing and connecting an additional separation unit.

As shown in fig. 9 and 10, in the specific structure of this embodiment, the underwater particle separating device further includes a housing 3300, a conveying passage 3310 is formed in the housing 3300, the conveying passage 3310 is opened along a front-rear direction, the conveying mechanism 3100 is disposed in the conveying passage 3310, and in the specific structure, the conveying mechanism 3100 may be disposed in plural numbers, and the plurality of conveying mechanisms 3100 are disposed in the conveying passage 3310 side by side along a left-right direction. By providing the plurality of transfer mechanisms 3100 and simultaneously starting the plurality of transfer mechanisms 3100, the transfer width is increased while the stability of the transfer is ensured, and the transfer efficiency can be improved. In addition, the inner wall of the shell 3300 is blocked above and below the transmission mechanism 3100, a limit space with a certain height is formed between the inner wall above the shell 3300 and the transmission mechanism 3100, so that the conveying capacity of the transmission mechanism 3100 can be limited to a certain extent, the conveying capacity of the transmission mechanism cannot be overlarge, and the device is not damaged, and thus different channel heights can be used for adapting to specific application parameters, such as the maximum nodule size, so as to prevent blockage and ensure the highest separation efficiency. Suction means 3200 sets up on casing 3300, a plurality of through-holes have been seted up on the inner wall in casing 3300 top, and suction means 3200 communicates through-hole and transfer passage 3310, accomplishes suction means 3200 like this and inhales the ore deposit function.

As shown in fig. 9, the transport mechanism 3100 in this embodiment specifically includes: a pulley 3110, a conveyor belt 3120, and a flap 3130. The belt wheel 3110 is rotatably disposed at both ends of the conveying direction, i.e., the front and rear ends are provided with the belt wheel 3110. The conveyer belt 3120 is sleeved on the belt wheels 3110 at both ends, and the conveyer belt 3120 is driven by the belt wheels 3110 to move circularly. A plurality of the baffles 3130 are spaced apart from each other on the panel 3121 of the conveyor belt 3120. At the turning back positions of the two ends where the belt wheel 3110 is located, the baffle 3130 reaches the turning back position of the front end under the circulating movement of the conveying belt 3120, the moving baffle 3130 rotates from bottom to top, so that the baffle 3130 can lift the slurry mixture flowing onto the conveying belt 3120, so that the slurry mixture is stably conveyed between the two adjacent baffles 3130, and when the slurry mixture is conveyed to the turning back position of the rear end, the baffle 3130 moves downwards, so that the slurry mixture on the conveying belt 3120 is sent out of the conveying belt 3120, and the conveying process is completed. In the specific structure of this embodiment, a fixing frame (not shown in the drawings) is disposed in the housing 3300, the pulley 3110 is rotatably connected to the fixing frame through a rotating shaft, and a power device, such as a motor and a speed reducer, is further connected to the fixing frame to provide power to one of the pulleys 3110 and drive the pulley 3110 to rotate. As shown in fig. 2, the conveyor belt 3120, in one form, may be comprised of a plurality of hinged panels 3121, the panels 3121 having a structural strength sufficient to support a slurry mixture. When the slurry mixture contains ore with large mass, the conveying belt 3120 can also realize stable support, and realize stable conveying of large ore.

As shown in fig. 10, the baffle 3130 in this embodiment is provided with water permeable holes 3131. The water permeable holes 3131 are provided in plural so that the baffles 3130 have a water permeable function, and a certain flow of water is generated in the transport passages 3310 during the transport of the transport belt 3120, so that the flow of water washes sludge on the ore through the water permeable holes 3131, thus making the ore cleaner. In addition, when the baffle 3130 moves below the conveying belt 3120, a certain water flow is generated in the conveying passage 3310 by the movement of the baffle 3130, so that the sludge on the baffle 3130 can be washed away, the cleaning of the baffle 3130 is realized, and the load of the baffle 3130 is reduced.

As shown in fig. 9 and 10, the baffle 3130 in this embodiment is disposed obliquely or perpendicularly to the panel 3121 of the conveying belt 3120, that is, the angle between the baffle 3130 and the conveying belt 3120 is an acute angle or a right angle. When acute, the face plate 3121 of the conveyor belt 3120 refers to the surface plate 3121 carrying the slurry mixture. An end of the flap 3130 facing away from the panel 3121 of the conveyor belt 3120 gradually moves away from the panel 3121 of the conveyor belt 3120 in the conveying direction. Specifically, when the baffle 3130 moves above the conveying belt 3120, the front end of the above baffle 3130 is connected to the panel 3121 of the conveying belt 3120, and the rear end of the above baffle 3130 is tilted upward, so that a groove having an acute profile is formed between the baffle 3130 and the panel 3121 of the conveying belt 3120, so that when the slurry mixture is placed in the groove, the slurry mixture is not easily separated from the conveying belt 3120. The outline of one end of the baffle plates, which faces away from the panel of the conveying belt, is L-shaped or/and T-shaped. That is, the upper ends of all the baffles on one conveyer belt are set to be L-shaped, or the upper ends of all the baffles on one conveyer belt are set to be T-shaped, or the upper ends of part of the baffles on one conveyer belt are set to be T-shaped and the upper ends of part of the baffles are set to be L-shaped. Therefore, the slurry mixture is limited in the groove formed by the conveying belt panel, the baffle plate and the panel, and the slurry mixture is not easy to fall off the conveying belt.

As shown in fig. 9 and 10, the suction mechanism 3200 in this embodiment specifically includes: a main sludge suction pipeline 3210, a branch sludge suction pipeline 3220 and an ejector 3230. The mud suction main pipeline 3210 extends along the conveying direction, the mud suction branch pipes 3220 are arranged at intervals along the conveying direction, the mud suction branch pipes 3220 are communicated with the mud suction main pipeline 3210, openings of the mud suction branch pipes 3220 face the panel 3121 of the conveying belt 3120, and the openings of the mud suction branch pipes 3220 are communicated with the conveying channel 3310. The ejector 3230 is in communication with the main sludge suction pipe 3210, and the main sludge suction pipe 3210 generates suction force by activation of the ejector 3230. By activating the ejector 3230, the ejector 3230 generates suction in the connected main sludge suction pipe 3210, and releases the suction to various positions above the conveying belt 3120 through the respective sludge suction branch pipes 3220, so that the suction can be generated above the conveying belt 3120. The ejector 230 in the present embodiment employs an ejector pump. Part of the ore and sludge in the slurry mixture on the transport mechanism 3100 is sucked up by suction in the slurry suction branch 3220. In a specific structure, the main sludge suction pipe 3210 and the branch sludge suction pipe 3220 may be formed by welding standard pipes separately, or may be welded directly on the housing through various plates to form the main sludge suction pipe 3210 and the branch sludge suction pipe 3220.

As shown in fig. 9 and 10, the mud suction branch pipe 3220 in this embodiment is obliquely arranged on the housing, and one end of the mud suction branch pipe 3220 connected to the main mud suction pipe 3210 is gradually away from the panel 3121 of the conveying belt 3120 in the conveying direction. Specifically, the panel 3121 of the conveying belt 3120 is disposed parallel to the upper inner wall of the housing, and the mud suction branch pipe 3220 forms a certain inclination angle with the upper inner wall of the housing. The suction force in the mud suction branch pipe 3220 is inclined to the mud mixture on the panel 3121 of the conveying belt 3120, so that the mud mixture at the suction port of the mud suction branch pipe 3220 is buffered to prevent the mixture from being directly sucked, and an excessive suction force is generated to block the suction port of the mud suction branch pipe 3220.

The conveying mechanism and the suction mechanism 3200 are adopted to work cooperatively, so that different conveying environments can be adapted by controlling the conveying speed of the conveying belt 3120 and the flow rate of the ejector 3230. The control conveyor 3120 transport speed and eductor 3230 flow rate are varied to accommodate separation of two (or more) material types of different weights and sizes. And the openings of the mud sucking branch pipes 3220, which are arranged at different positions along the line (front-back direction) of the conveying belt 3120, of each group of the sucking mechanisms 3200 are different in size, so that the suction force and the flow rate at different positions can be controlled. If the opening of the mud suction branch pipe 3220 near the front end is larger than the opening of the mud suction branch pipe 3220 near the rear end, a large amount of mud can be sucked at the front end, and the rear end can intensively adsorb the mud attached to the surface of the ore, so that the surface of the ore is cleaner.

As shown in fig. 9 and 10, the underwater particle separating apparatus 3000 in this embodiment further includes an eccentric roller 3140. The eccentric wheel 3140 is arranged on the transport mechanism 3100, and the eccentric wheel 3140 is used for disturbing the slurry mixture on the transport mechanism 3100 by rotation. As the eccentric roller 3140 rotates, the eccentric roller 3140 vibrates the conveyor belt 3120, so that the slurry mixture on the conveyor belt 3120 is dispersed by the vibration of the conveyor belt 3120, which disturbs the slurry mixture due to the action of the water flow in the conveyor passage 3310. By disturbing the mixture, lighter and finer ore particles and sludge can be suspended in the liquid, which ensures separation of the different particle streams. The larger/heavier particle flow is retained on the conveyor belt and the lighter/smaller particles are released under the disturbance of the eccentric rollers 3140 to create a suspension which facilitates separation of the sludge and sorting of the large and small ores. In the specific structure of this embodiment, the eccentric roller 3140 is disposed in the space surrounded by the conveying belt 3120, and the eccentric roller 3140 is an elliptical eccentric roller 3140, the elliptical eccentric roller 3140 is provided with a plurality of, and a plurality of the elliptical eccentric rollers 3140 are distributed along the front-rear direction at intervals, and the elliptical eccentric roller 3140 is rotatably connected to the fixing frame through the rotating shaft, so that both ends of the elliptical eccentric roller 3140 are protruding portions, and when the elliptical eccentric roller 3140 rotates, the upper portion of the conveying belt 3120 and the lower portion of the conveying belt 3120 can be intermittently ejected at the same time, thereby not only disturbing the slime mixture on the upper portion of the conveying belt 3120, but also shaking off the uncleaned slime on the lower conveying belt 3120. Two functions are simultaneously realized through one eccentric roller 3140, and the working efficiency is improved.

As shown in fig. 9 and 10, the underwater particle separation device 3000 in this embodiment further includes a jet flow pipe 3150, the jet flow pipe 3150 is disposed on one side of the transport mechanism 3100, and the jet flow pipe 3150 is used for spraying water toward the slurry mixture on the transport mechanism 3100. The slurry mixture on the conveying mechanism 3100 is sprayed by the jet flow pipes 3150, so that lighter and finer particles can be released into the suspension, and the slurry mixture on the conveying belt 3120 is further disturbed, so that the disturbance amplitude is increased, and the ore and the sludge are more sufficiently separated. In the specific structure of this embodiment, the plurality of jet flow pipes 3150 are arranged, the plurality of jet flow pipes 3150 are distributed at intervals in the front-rear direction, and the plurality of jet flow pipes 3150 and the plurality of elliptical eccentric rollers 3140 can cooperate with each other to disturb the slurry mixture. A plurality of the jet conduits 3150 may be arranged on the left, right or lower side of the conveyor belt 3120. When the fluidic conduits 3150 are disposed on the underside of the conveyor 3120, the face plate 3121 of the conveyor 3120 is provided with small holes that are insufficient to leak ore. The fluid jetting pipe 3150 jets water toward the surface of the panel 3121 of the conveyor belt 3120, so that not only the slurry mixture on the panel 3121 of the upper portion of the conveyor belt 3120 can be disturbed, but also the surface of the panel 3121 of the lower portion of the conveyor belt 3120 can be cleaned, and at the same time, the functions of disturbance and cleaning can be performed. The water outlet of the jet flow pipe 3150 in this embodiment faces the panel 3121 of the conveying belt 3120, and the direction of the water flow in the jet flow pipe 3150 is perpendicular to the panel 3121 of the conveying belt 3120. Therefore, the slime mixture on the panel 3121 at the upper part of the conveying belt 3120 is directly impacted by the water flow in the jet flow pipeline 3150, so that the disturbance force is large and the disturbance is more sufficient.

In the above process, the slurry mixture enters the underwater particle separation device 3000 and is transported by the conveyor belt 3120. The lighter, finer particles are released into the suspension by agitation of the eccentric roller 3140 and/or the jet in jet conduit 3150. This ensures separation of the different particle streams: the larger/heavier particle stream remains on the conveyor 3120 and the lighter/smaller particles are disturbed into the suspension, which is then sucked away closer to the suction means 3200. When the ore and sludge are adhered to each other, the mixture of clay or particles is separated better by the stirring action of the eccentric roller 3140 and the jet flow in the jet flow pipe 3150.

As shown in fig. 9 and 10, in the specific structure of this embodiment, the underwater particle separating device 3000 further includes a cleaning mechanism 3400, the cleaning mechanism 3400 includes a cleaning nozzle 3410, the cleaning nozzle 3410 is located at the turning back of the conveying belt 3120, and the cleaning nozzle 3410 is used for spraying a water curtain toward the baffle 3130 and the panel 3121 of the conveying belt 3120. The baffle 3130 after the ore is conveyed is washed by a water curtain ejected by the cleaning nozzle 3410, so that sludge on the baffle 3130 can be washed away, and the baffle 3130 is prevented from carrying back the sludge. In the specific structure of this embodiment, the cleaning nozzle 3410 is disposed at the rear end of the housing 3300, and the water curtain sprayed by the cleaning nozzle 3410 is turned toward the baffle 3130 that is turned from above to below, so that the muddy water can be flushed from the ore outlet after the muddy water is flushed. The cleaning nozzle 3410 and the jet flow pipe 3150 in this embodiment may share one water supply pipe 3420. This saves on piping.

The working principle of the underwater particle separation device is as follows: after entering the machine, the nodule and sludge mixture (slurry mixture) is transferred (optionally with transfer wheels as required) to the face plate 3121 of the conveyor 3120. The belt 3120 has a baffle large enough to fit the size of the largest nodule. The water jet ejected through the jet pipe 3150 arranged at the edge of the panel 3121 of the conveyor belt 3120, which is perpendicular to the conveyor belt face, removes the deposits entrained in the ore nodules and separates the two types of substances. The use of eccentric rollers 3140 also increases the agitation and release of the sediment. The silt/clay/sand/debris particles are released from the sediment and suspended by the water jets emitted from the jet lines 3150 and the jacking of the conveyor belt 3120 by the eccentric rollers 3140. A ceiling/roof array of suction mechanisms 3200 located at the lift belt panels 3121 is used to suck suspended silt from the mixture. The injection flow rate of the suction means 3200 can be varied (and thus the suction flow rate) to optimise sludge suction and minimise the loss of fine ore which enters the sludge circuit with the sludge. The speed of the conveyor belt 3120 may also vary from the minimum required conveyance rate upward. The separation efficiency can be optimized in combination with the above adjustments to accommodate a variety of different field conditions (different size fractions, different materials).

A typical application of the above described underwater particle separation apparatus is: the device is used for collecting polymetallic nodules in a submarine environment, wherein a certain proportion of fine-grained clay/silt/sand/debris is entrained in the process of collecting the polymetallic nodules on the seabed, in this case, the two types of particles have a significant particle size difference on the size fraction, smaller-sized ores are sucked out through the suction mechanism in the device, and larger-sized ores are left on the conveying mechanism due to insufficient suction. This also enables the function of sorting the ore particles.

When applied to offshore or inland bodies of water, the mixture inlet and one of the outlets (e.g., the sludge outlet) in the housing are open to the body of water, discharging the sludge directly into the existing water environment. And the desired mineral is discharged to a downstream ore transport system.

In the case of land based processing, a source of water may be provided to wet the mixture and the water provided may be recycled in the circulation system. If the two/more channels are ore, i.e. there is also ore at the outlet of the suction means and at the outlet of the delivery means, both places need to be separated in order to perform different processes on different particle sizes. For example, one ore stream may be sent to a filter press or froth flotation circuit, while the other ore stream is sent to a dewatering circuit.

As shown in fig. 11, the car body 10 is provided with a car frame 3510, and the transporting mechanism 3100 is provided to extend obliquely upward on the car frame 3510.

A mixture inlet 3320 is provided at an obliquely lower portion of the housing 3300, the mixture inlet 3320 is connected to the collecting port, an ore outlet 3330 is provided at an obliquely upper portion of the housing 3300, and the transport mechanism 3100 directionally transports the slurry mixture from the mixture inlet 3320 to the ore outlet 3330. During the transmission process of the slurry mixture, part of ore and sludge in the slurry mixture is sucked through the suction mechanism 3200 to form a clean large ore and flow out of the ore outlet 3330. In this mining vehicle, the ore nodules are lifted by the transfer mechanism 3100.

The principle of use of the mining vehicle is further elucidated here in the context of an application of seafloor mining, using fig. 9, 11 as an example. The input to the underwater particle separation unit is a mixture of polymetallic nodules and seafloor sediments/sludge. In this case, the conveyor 3120 is a lifting belt, allowing sufficient height to be lifted, for the cleaned nodules to be discharged through the on-board crusher and pumping system, and for the cleaning product to be conveyed to the lifting system. The seabed sediment (clay/silt/sand/debris) waste from the extraction circuit of the suction means is fed to a diffuser on the mining vehicle, which can spread its seabed sediment (clay/silt/sand/debris) onto the already mined path behind the mining vehicle, and its silt discharge can also restore the seabed in seabed or inland underwater mining operations. The characteristics and simplicity of design of the present underwater particle separation device can readily construct an expanded structure for use in a particular application scenario. The belt speed and flow rate can be adjusted to optimize the separation efficiency of the mixture.

Thus, in underwater mineral industry applications, a cleaner ore product than would otherwise be produced can be produced by the present underwater particle separation device, avoiding the taking of large amounts of sludge to the sea surface, thereby reducing the capacity and operating costs required for riser systems (transporting ore to the sea surface) and ship/platform based sludge handling and dewatering systems. Furthermore, the underwater particle separation apparatus can be used in any processing circuit having a water source to separate a plurality of streams of different size grades from a mixture of materials-to separate mineral products and waste from the mixture or to separate mineral products of different size grades. An underwater particle separation device may be used in a wastewater-sewage system to separate large particle waste from small particle waste. In addition, when installed on mobile underwater equipment, the underwater particle separation device can be used in a variety of applications requiring separation from a source, including cleaning of beaches and near shore contamination.

As shown in fig. 1 and 12, the sediment discharged from the suction mechanism in the underwater particle separation device 3000 is conveyed to the diffusion device 4000. The underwater diffusion device 4000 is detachably connected to the mine car body 10. In particular, the underwater diffusion device is positioned behind the mine car body 10. The underwater diffusion device of the embodiment comprises a diffusion housing 4200, a diffusion channel 4221 is arranged in the diffusion housing 4200, the diffusion housing 4200 is connected with an input pipeline 4300 of a sediment separation device on a mining vehicle, sediment collected during mining is pumped out of the input pipeline 4300, the sediment is mainly waste such as clay/silt/sand particles, the sediment is pumped out of the input pipeline 4300 to the diffusion channel 4221 in the diffusion housing 4200, the diffusion channel 4221 is used for sediment discharge, the cross-sectional area of the diffusion channel 4221 in the sediment discharge direction is gradually increased, and the sediment discharge direction is inclined downwards or vertically downwards due to the fact that the sediment is discharged to the sea bed surface as much as possible. A swing adjusting assembly 4400 is movably arranged on the diffusion housing 4200, the swing adjusting assembly 4400 is positioned below the diffusion housing 4200, an adjusting channel 4410 is arranged in the swing adjusting assembly 4400, and the adjusting channel 4410 is communicated with an output end of the diffusion channel 4221.

According to the scheme, the diffusion channel is arranged in the shell of the underwater diffusion device, the shell is connected with the pipeline for pumping out the sediment, so that the sediment can be sent into the diffusion channel, the flow direction of the sediment is guided through the diffusion channel, the sediment flows along the diffusion channel, and the discharge direction of the sediment is formed. The sediment is covered by the shell, so that the sediment is prevented from diffusing in the water bottom, and the diffusion channel is designed into a structure form that the section area along the discharge direction of the sediment is gradually increased, so that the speed of the water flow with the sediment is reduced, the speed of all particles is reduced, and the sediment is rapidly precipitated. The decelerated and diverted sediment stream is then discharged to reduce turbidity in the surrounding water caused by the discharge, thereby avoiding the problem that the miner is not operated favorably due to low visibility in operation. After the dispersed and decelerated sediment reaches the output end of the diffusion channel, the constant height and the constant gap are kept between the discharge outlet at the bottom of the adjustment channel and the sea floor through the position adjustment of the swing adjustment assembly under the conditions of different seabed shapes and mining vehicle sinking depths so as to keep the stable discharge of fluid, facilitate the rapid sedimentation after sediment discharge and reduce the turbidity in the water body around the mining vehicle. In addition, the sediment after being decelerated can be discharged to different heights through the adjusting channel, so that the sediment is piled up from the bottom of the sea step by step instead of being discharged at a fixed height with a certain distance from the bottom of the sea, the distance from the outlet of the adjusting channel to the bottom of the sea is reduced as much as possible by swinging the adjusting component, the sediment is prevented from being exposed from a gap between the distance and drifting, and the turbidity in the surrounding water body is further prevented from being increased. And the outlet of the regulating channel is reduced by swinging the regulating component, so that the potential influence of a floating plume generated by the fluid with high-flow-rate sediment on the seabed environment is avoided. The living environment of natural species, particularly the living miniature animals in the cave, can not be damaged. The adjustment of the outlet by the swinging adjusting assembly for the floating sundries avoids the phenomenon that the floating sundries can enter the mining vehicle of the following mining operation again, the collected deposits do not need to be processed again, the processing workload cannot be increased, and the mining efficiency is improved.

On the basis of the above scheme, as shown in fig. 12, 13, and 14, the specific structure of the present embodiment is: the diffusion housing 4200 includes an input portion 4210, and a buffering portion 4220. The input portion 4210 is located above the buffering portion 4220, a feeding cavity 4211 is arranged in the input portion 4210, and an input pipeline 4300 for conveying sediment is communicated in the feeding cavity 4211. The buffering portion 4220 is connected with the input portion 4210, and the diffusion passage 4221 is located in the buffering portion 4220 and communicated with the feeding cavity 4211. The diffuser housing 4200 is assembled from a plurality of baffles that enclose various channels. The input portion 4210 is located at the upper portion of the diffusion housing 4200, the buffering portion 4220 is located at the middle portion of the diffusion housing 4200, the input pipe 4300 is connected to the input portion 4210, and the sediment water flows into the buffering portion 4220 through the input portion 4210 after entering the input portion 4210, so that the sediment water flows upward and downward in the diffusion housing 4200. The cross-sectional area of the feed cavity in the deposit discharge direction is smaller than the cross-sectional area of the diffuser passage in the deposit discharge direction, that is, the cross-sectional area of the feed cavity 4211 in the input portion 4210 in the up-down direction is smaller than the cross-sectional area of the diffuser passage 4221 in the buffer portion 4220 in the up-down direction. When the sediment water flow in the input pipeline 4300 enters the feeding cavity 4211, the sediment water flow is buffered by the inner wall of the feeding cavity 4211, and then enters the diffusion channel 4221 with larger space. In this way the cross-sectional area of the passage in the housing in the direction of the discharge of the sediment is gradually increased, so that the flow speed of the liquid is gradually reduced. After entering the diffusion channel, the diffusion channel gradually enlarged along the flow direction can eliminate the vortex/turbulent flow in the liquid entering the channel at high speed as soon as possible, thereby reducing the movement speed and energy of the sediment in the fluid. Thereby further dispersing the sediment water flow and slowing down the flow within the diffusion passage 4221 to facilitate the discharge of sediment at a slow rate to the seabed. A portion of the larger particle sediment will settle on the sea floor below the diffuser and the smaller particle sediment will be discharged with the fluid. Because the movement speed and the energy of the deposit are greatly reduced after passing through the diffusion device, the deposit can be rapidly settled after being discharged, thereby reducing the turbidity in the water body around the mining vehicle and avoiding influencing the operation visibility of the mining machine.

In this embodiment, a plurality of input pipes 4300 are provided, and the plurality of input pipes 4300 are respectively located at two opposite sides of the input portion 4210. The two sides of the inlet pipes 4300 are arranged oppositely, and when sediment discharge is performed simultaneously, the two sediment water flows in the inlet chamber 4211 form opposite impacts, which can mutually offset the impact force of each other, so that the opposite sediment water flows are diffused towards the diffusion passage 4221 under the action of gravity. The input part 4210 in this embodiment has input pipes 4300 connected to the left and right sides, respectively, so that the left and right sides are simultaneously discharged, thereby improving discharge efficiency, changing the direction of water flow by opposite impact, and diffusing the water flow up and down, and the upper side is sealed by the input part 4210, thereby promoting the diffusion of the water flow to the lower buffer part 4220.

As shown in fig. 12 and 13, the diffusion housing 4200 in this embodiment further includes a discharge portion 4230, the discharge portion 4230 is connected to an output end of the buffering portion 4220, specifically, the discharge portion 4230 is connected below the buffering portion 4220, the swing adjustment assembly 4400 is movably disposed on the discharge portion 4230, the swing adjustment assembly 4400 is disposed below the discharge portion 4230, a discharge passage 4231 is disposed in the discharge portion 4230, and the discharge passage 4231 respectively communicates with the diffusion passage 4221 and the adjustment passage 4410. By swinging the adjustment assembly 4400, the adjustment channel 4410 can be swung under the discharge passage, and an opening is arranged under the adjustment channel 4410 and is an outlet of sediment water flow. The discharge passage 4231 is disposed in a vertical direction, and the diffusion passage 4221 is disposed obliquely to the vertical direction. The above description about the directions of the discharge passage 4231 and the diffusion passage 4221 is made with reference to a vertical section on which the center line in the width direction of the diffusion housing 4200 is located, on which the diffusion passage 4221 is obliquely arranged, and the drain passage is arranged in the vertical direction. The diffusion channel 4221 is inclined to the vertical direction, so that the downward flowing sediment water flow is blocked by the inner wall of the diffusion channel 4221, the sediment water flow is guided, the sediment water flow can slowly move downwards along the inclined direction, the sediment in the sediment water flow is decelerated, the impact energy of the sediment water flow is further slowed down, the sediment water flow is blocked by the inner wall of the discharge channel 4231 when entering the discharge channel 4231 in the vertical direction through the guide of the diffusion channel 4221, the inclined sediment water flow is guided downwards, the sediment water flow is reversed once, and the impact energy of the sediment water flow is further reduced in the process of resisting and reversing the sediment water flow.

As shown in fig. 12, 13, and 14, the bumper portion 4220 of the present embodiment has a specific structure in which the bumper portion 4220 specifically includes a front baffle 4222, a rear baffle 4223, and side baffles 4224 connecting left and right sides of the front baffle 4222 and the rear baffle 4223. Front and rear ends of the side guards 4224 on the left and right sides are welded to the front guard 4222 and the rear guard 4223, respectively, and the upper end of the cushion 4220 is also provided with a guard and welded to the input portion 4210. As shown in fig. 2 and 3, the front barrier 4222 and the rear barrier 4223 are arranged in parallel, and the side barriers 4224 on the left and right sides extend away from each other in the deposit discharge direction. Thus, the cushion portion 4220 has a trapezoidal outer contour, and the diffusion passage 4221 has a trapezoidal inner wall contour. So that the cross-sectional area of the diffuser passage 4221 in the deposit discharge direction gradually increases. It is easy to think that the front baffle 222 and the rear baffle 223 can be arranged in a non-parallel manner, and the design that the space of the diffusion channel 221 is gradually increased can be applied to the present solution. The space of the diffusion passage 4221 is gradually enlarged along the discharge direction (obliquely up and down direction) of the sediment, and when water flows along the sediment in the gradually enlarged diffusion space, the water can be respectively diffused towards the left side and the right side, so that the sediment can be prevented from being too concentrated and solidified together, and the dispersed sediment is closer to the natural unconsolidated state when being discharged, and the situation that the dispersed sediment is re-laid on the seabed and the natural species, particularly the miniature animals living in the cave, can be promoted. And particularly the front baffle 4222 and the rear baffle 4223, which block the sediment water flow with a large impact force just entering the diffuser, so that the water flow can enter the corner (baffle joint) positions of the side baffles 4224 at the left and right sides, and the baffles in all directions at the positions block, thus the vortex flow can be excited in the diffuser passage 4221 to decelerate, and the sediment water flow is decelerated and dispersed.

As shown in fig. 12 and 13, the swing adjustment assembly 4400 in this embodiment includes: a pivot 4420, a swing arm support 4430, and a flexible wrapping 4440. The rotating shaft 4420 is arranged on the diffusion housing 4200 along the left-right direction, specifically, the rotating shaft 4420 is connected to the diffusion housing 4200 through a bearing seat, the swing arm bracket 4430 is connected to the rotating shaft 4420, the rotation of the rotating shaft 4420 can drive the swing arm bracket 4430 to rotate, the flexible wrapping layer 4440 is arranged on the side surface of the swing arm bracket 4430, and the adjusting channel 4410 is formed in the flexible wrapping layer 4440. The lower side of the swing arm bracket 4430 is not covered by the flexible covering 4440, so that the regulating channel 4410 is left with an outlet for the sediment discharge at the lower side. In addition, the underwater diffusion device is further provided with a power driving part, such as a motor, a hydraulic pushing connecting rod or the like, and the power driving part is controlled to apply a rotating force to the rotating shaft 4420 to drive the rotating shaft 4420 to rotate by an angle, and the rotating shaft 4420 drives the swing arm support 4430 to rotate by an angle, so that the position of the outlet of the whole adjusting channel 4410 is changed, and the outlet of the adjusting channel 4410 can be increased or decreased. By increasing or decreasing the outlet of the tuning passage 4410, the following advantages are obtained. The first is that: when mining is performed at a place where ore is concentrated, the dwell time of the mining vehicle at the place is long, and the deposit is higher the more during normal discharge of the deposit, and if the outlet of the adjusting channel 4410 is initially fixed, the distance of the outlet of the adjusting channel 4410 above the sea floor is controlled to be small, resulting in the deposit accumulating in the underwater diffusion device, which is inconvenient for discharge of the deposit. To avoid this, it is necessary to adjust the distance between the outlet of the channel 4410 and the height of the sea floor to be large, so that a large gap is formed, from which sediment emerges and drifts away, causing an increase in turbidity in the surrounding water. This reduces the effectiveness of the underwater diffusion device. When the movable adjustment of the outlet of the adjusting channel 4410 is realized by rotating the swing arm bracket 4430, the outlet of the adjusting channel 4410 can be lowered first, so that the gap between the outlet of the adjusting channel 4410 and the sea floor is small, and the turbidity in the surrounding water body is not increased when sediment is discharged. After the sediment is paved to a certain height, the swing arm bracket 4430 is swung, so that the distance from the outlet of the adjusting channel 4410 to the original sea bottom surface is increased, the distance from the surface after the sediment is paved is unchanged, the gap is still small, and the sediment is continuously discharged from the next layer. Therefore, by gradually increasing the distance between the outlet of the adjustment channel 4410 and the sea floor, a better control effect of turbidity in the surrounding water body is achieved. Secondly, the following steps: the discharge height can be adjusted according to different terrains of the sea bottom. Through rotation adjustment, under the condition of different seabed shapes and mining vehicle sinking depths, constant height and clearance are kept between a discharge port at the bottom of the adjusting channel and the sea floor so as to keep stable discharge of fluid, fast sedimentation after sediment discharge is facilitated, and turbidity in water around the mining vehicle is reduced. The swing adjusting assembly is adjusted according to the height of the submarine topography, so that the outlet of the adjusting channel keeps a certain height for continuous operation. The outlet heights of the regulating channels used, for example, for soft and hard foundations on the seabed differ, so that optimum mining efficiency is achieved with minimal ecological disruption.

As shown in fig. 12 and 13, in the specific structure of the swing adjustment assembly 4400, the rotating shaft 4420 includes a front rotating shaft 4421 and a rear rotating shaft 4422, and the front rotating shaft 4421 and the rear rotating shaft 4422 are respectively disposed on the discharge portion 4230 along the front-rear direction. The connection of the swing arm support 4430 is more stable by providing the front rotary shaft 4421 and the rear rotary shaft 4422. The swing arm bracket 4430 includes: a plurality of front swing arms 4431, a plurality of rear swing arms 4432, and a connection base plate 4433. The plurality of front swing arms 4431 are arranged side by side in the left-right direction on the front rotary shaft 4421, and the plurality of rear swing arms 4432 are arranged side by side in the left-right direction on the front rotary shaft 4421. The underwater diffusion device has a certain length in the left-right direction, the flexible wrapping layer 4440 can be effectively supported by arranging the front swing arms 4431 and the rear swing arms 4432, so that the flexible wrapping layer 4440 can be stably connected onto the swing arm support 4430, the flexible wrapping layer 4440 is prevented from being separated or broken, a leakage hole is generated in the adjusting channel 4410, and the sediment leaks from the leakage hole to enable the turbidity in the surrounding water body to become turbid. The connecting bottom plate 4433 is hinged to the adjacent front swing arm 4431 and the adjacent rear swing arm 4432. The opening of the diffusion passage 4221 is limited at the bottom end by the connecting bottom plate 4433, and the opening surface of the opening of the diffusion passage 4221 can be kept horizontal when the height is adjusted, so that the deposits fall down and are accumulated.

As shown in fig. 12, the underwater diffusion device in this embodiment further comprises a connecting member 4500, the connecting member 4500 is fixedly connected to the diffusion housing 4200, and the connecting member 4500 is used for mounting the diffusion housing 4200 on the mining vehicle body. In a specific structure, the connecting member 4500 includes a supporting frame 4510, the supporting frame 4510 is welded to the diffusion housing 4200, the supporting frame 4510 is provided with a plurality of through holes 4520, and the diffusion housing 4200 is fixed to the mining vehicle by passing screws through the through holes 4520.

As shown in fig. 13 and 14, in this embodiment, the inlet conduit 4300 has a relatively small total cross-sectional area on each side, and the flow of sediment water is delivered into the feed chamber 4211 at a relatively high velocity, about 5 meters per second when introduced from the inlet conduit 4300. The velocity of the particles is slowed down by the inner walls of the feed chamber 4211, the diffusion passage 4221, and the discharge passage 4231 by the blocking and cushioning guides, and the cross-sectional areas of the feed chamber 4211, the diffusion passage 4221, and the discharge passage 4231 are gradually increased, and the output thereof is slowed down by the gradually increased cross-sectional areas according to the mass flow conservation principle. And the adjusting channel 4410 as the output end can be movably arranged to match the mining track behind the mining vehicle. The velocity of the material as the stream of sediment water exits the lower end opening of the conditioning channel 4410 is already slow enough to promote settling, the average flow velocity as it exits the lower end opening of the conditioning channel 4410 is 0.06 m/s, and the sediment is deposited to the sea floor. The input flow and the volume expansion multiplier incorporated into the design can be varied to accommodate operating requirements and in-situ characteristics of the deposit, for example, by adjusting for deposit particle size.

The path followed by a mining vehicle mining perpendicular to the direction of movement of the mining vessel 100, the mining vehicle having a serpentine path of motion, is shown in fig. 15. Mining is realized while the seabed is recovered through the underwater diffusion device.

As shown in fig. 1 and 16, an abundance detecting apparatus of the present embodiment includes a sonar detecting apparatus 1200 and a structured light imaging apparatus 1300. The sonar detection device 1200 is provided toward the moving direction (forward) of the mine car body 10, and is used to detect the ore distribution density by sonar. The structured light imaging device 1300 is provided toward the moving direction (front) of the mine car body 10, and is used to detect the ore distribution density by taking an image. A control device (not shown) which is respectively connected with the sonar detection device 1200 and the structured light imaging device 1300 in a communication way and is used for controlling the mining speed according to the ore distribution density; the control means may be provided on the mine car body 10 or separately on the mining vessel.

The mining vehicle in the prior art has no equipment for detecting the abundance of the ore, so that the abundance of the ore in the area cannot be measured. If the mining excavating machinery carries out uniform-speed forward mining, insufficient mining, leaked ore collection and high ore pulp concentration are caused for the area with high ore abundance; to the area that ore abundance is low, ore pulp concentration is low, causes mining in-process ore pulp concentration to change greatly, brings the difficulty for follow-up elevator pump and ore pulp dehydration, leads to setting up a middle deck that plays the cushioning effect below the elevator pump in riser lift system, and this middle deck is bulky, and the expense is high, brings a lot of difficulties for transferring the recovery operation.

In the above-described aspect, the abundance detecting device detects the sea floor in front by the sonar detection device 1200 provided on the mine car body 10, and since the acoustic reflectivity of the ore nodules is different from the submarine sediment (sludge, sand, etc.), the sonar detection device 1200 can form sonar images by the control device according to the detected data, and determine the distribution of the ore nodules in the detection area, so that the abundance can be measured and mapped by the sonar detection device 1200. In addition, in order to make the detection data more accurate, the mining area is further detected by the structured light imaging device 1300, the mining area is photographed by the structured light imaging device 1300 and three-dimensional point lines of the sea floor are acquired, and irregularities and small contour deviations related to the sea floor contour are evaluated by analyzing the photographed contour lines, thereby providing supplementary information on the number and size of ore nodules. Therefore, the data acquired by the sonar detection device 1200 and the structured light imaging device 1300 can be used for accurately acquiring the ore density in a certain area of the seabed, and the mining speed is controlled by the control device and reasonably controlled according to the ore nodule condition in the mining area. Therefore, stable ore pulp concentration and flow are realized, a middle cabin is not required to be arranged in the lifting system, and the mining efficiency is improved. By the common detection of the sonar detection device 1200 and the structured light imaging device 1300, the detection range (area a in fig. 2) thereof can cover the mining area.

On the basis of the above scheme, the embodiment specifically includes:

as shown in FIG. 16, the mine car body 10 includes a main body, and a bracket 1120, the bracket 1120 being suspended in front of the main body so as to avoid interference with the detection process of the sonar detection apparatus 1200 and the structured light imaging apparatus 1300 by the main body. The bracket 1120 comprises connecting rods 1121 connected to the main body, and supporting cross bars 1122 connected to the connecting rods 1121, the supporting cross bars 1122 extend in the left-right direction, the sonar detection device 1200 and the structured light imaging device 1300 are both arranged on the supporting cross bars 1122, and thus the supporting cross bars 1122 can stably fix the sonar detection device 1200 and the structured light imaging device 1300.

As shown in fig. 16 and 17, the sonar detection device 1200 specifically includes: front sonar 1210, and side sonar 1220. The front sonar 1210 is provided at the front end of the mine car body 10. Specifically, a front sonar 1210 is provided on the support bar 1122, by which front sonar 1210 a mining area of the mining apparatus as it progresses through the mine can be covered. The data collected by the front sonar 1210 form a sonar image, the ore density on the advancing route of the mining equipment is judged, and then the advancing speed of the mining equipment in the area is adjusted according to the ore density, so that the mining efficiency is maximized. Two side sonar devices 1220 are provided, and the two side sonar devices 1220 are respectively provided at both side ends of the mine car body 10. Specifically, the side sonar devices 1220 are respectively fixed to the left and right ends of the support bar 1122, and the sonar emission direction of the side sonar devices 1220 is directed diagonally forward (side-forward). When the front side sonar is blocked by animals and plants on the seabed, inaccurate detection can be caused, the blocked area can be detected from the side by detecting through the side sonar device 1220, and meanwhile, the detection range is also increased, so that the detection is more comprehensive.

The front sonar devices 1210 in this embodiment are provided in two, and the two front sonar devices 1210 are provided symmetrically in the left-right direction of the mine car body 10. Two front side sonar ware 1210 detect towards the place ahead simultaneously, because the detection area of every front side sonar ware 1210 all is fan-shaped, detects through two front side sonar wares 1210, makes detection area more comprehensive on can covering the route of mining that the mining car gos forward, makes detection range, is difficult for producing to omit.

Multiple acoustic backscatter data at close range (4 to 10 meters), for example, of the sonar detection device 1200 can provide more detailed images the closer the sonar detection device 1200 is to the bottom of the mining vehicle during use. With closer distances, more accurate data can be obtained using higher frequencies, for example sonar parameters in the range of 400kHz to 700 kHz. In the selected area, the average backscattering acoustic echo depends on the nodule distribution, and the relation among the nodule abundance, the size and the sound level is obtained according to preset sonar configuration parameters and pre-measured specific acoustic reflectivity morphological parameters of the seabed sludge. Thereby predicting the abundance of the ore nodules according to the sonar images. Furthermore, for sonar images measured by the front side sonar 1210, the image resolution is sufficient to represent single nodules with diameters exceeding 3 cm. The sonar images may also be processed to detect a single acoustic echo for each nodule.

As shown in fig. 16 and 18, the structured light imaging apparatus 1300 in the present embodiment includes: an illumination lamp 1310, and a camera 1320. An SLS detection System (Structure Light System) is formed by the illumination lamp 1310 and the camera 1320. The light source provided by the illuminating lamp 1310 is emitted to the sea bottom surface, the light curtain is contacted with the sea bottom surface, the contact position of the light curtain can form a light and shadow outline, the light and shadow outline is shot by the camera 1320 to obtain a three-dimensional contour line (as shown in fig. 18 c), the three-dimensional contour line is uneven due to the height of the appearance of the sea bottom ore, the surface shape of the sea bottom surface can be obtained through scanning analysis of a plurality of three-dimensional contour lines, and therefore the distribution condition of the ore in the area can be obtained through analyzing the salient points of the three-dimensional contour line. The method specifically comprises the following steps: because nodules have different shades of gray from the sea floor, image processing can be used to provide an overall estimate of nodule abundance by analyzing color/shade and spot areas, in which a single visible nodule ore can also be detected by edge detection, mathematical morphology, and region fitting. Thus, the analysis of the three-dimensional contour lines allows to assess its irregularities and small contour deviations in relation to the sea floor contour, thus providing supplementary information about the number and size of nodules.

The illumination lamp 1310 in this embodiment is provided at the front end of the mine car body 10, and the camera 1320 is located below the illumination lamp 1310. So that the front subsea grid, and nearby areas beside it, can be scanned. The structured light imaging devices 1300 in this embodiment are provided in two, and the two structured light imaging devices 1300 are symmetrically provided in the left-right direction of the mine car body 10. Two structured light image device 1300 detect towards the place ahead simultaneously, because every structured light image device 1300's detection area complements each other, detects through two structured light image device 1300, makes detection area can cover on the route of mining that the mining car gos forward, makes detection range more comprehensive, is difficult for producing and omits. It is easy to think that the camera can also be located in other directions of the illuminating lamp, such as up, left, right, etc., and the shooting effect of the camera cannot reach the shooting effect of the camera located below the illuminating lamp.

As shown in FIG. 19, the light imaging device 300 is located 3-4 meters from the bottom surface of the mine car body 10. And the shape of the seabed 6 meters ahead of the seabed can be observed according to the field of view and the longitudinal positioning. Two cameras 1320 can view the collection grid, the helical rake, and the near-sea area in front of the grid. Short-range nodule detection and feature analysis using the camera 1320 images is a very valuable tool. Images taken from a relatively short distance to the bottom (between 4 and 8 meters) enable the characteristic distribution of ore nodules and ground truth analysis to be clearly obtained.

The results taken by the camera 1320 may not only provide an estimate of relative nodule abundance, but may also be used to determine the average diameter or size distribution of nodules and the nodule count. The actual relationship between the actual nodule diameter and the vision-based estimate (since many nodule parts are buried) can be adjusted by observing and measuring nodules on the grid and correcting using a machine learning module.

A 60 degree vertical field of view camera is for example mounted at a height of 3m of the mining vehicle, where approximately 6 m in front can be observed. Taking into account that the mining vehicle travels at a speed of 1.5m/s, the shots are taken at a rate of 20 frames/s, each frame covering a ground slab of about 30 cm. It is thus possible to analyse a number of bars in front of the mining head and determine the number of nodules per bar, including the latest estimate of the number of nodules of the bar closest to the mine head. Considering that a typical 300-thousand pixel camera is readily available, densities of over 9 pixels per square centimeter can be achieved over distances of up to 2 meters. This resolution is sufficient for detection and accurate calculation of single nodules.

As shown in fig. 19, an example of a simulated view is shown, taken by a 3m high camera 1320 with a horizontal field of view of 90 degrees, observing 0.5m equally spaced nodules and a 1m square grid (as in b in fig. 19). As shown in FIG. 5, different patterns can be obtained according to different nodules, and the diameter of each nodule is 10cm (d and e in FIG. 20); and images with a nodule diameter of 5cm (f and g in fig. 20); images with 50% of nodules exposed (e and g in fig. 20) or images with 30% of nodules exposed (d and f in fig. 20). As can be seen, in this configuration, each camera 1320 is 5 meters wide directly in front of the machine and 8 meters wide 3 meters away in front of the machine. Two cameras on two sides of the front part of the machine can cover the whole mining channel and can cover the range of several meters wide of the adjacent mining channel.

Given the use requirements of the cameras 1320 and SLS detection systems, the front camera 1320 requires the use of an illumination lamp 1310, and the camera 1320 used has a global shutter to eliminate the rolling band effect of a rolling shutter image sensor when relatively fast mining vehicle motion (about 1.5 m/s) and pulsating light would be required.

The image of the ore nodules in the mining area is analyzed through the control device, and when the ore nodule density in the mining area is large, the speed of the mining vehicle is reduced through the control device, so that the ore collecting speed is increased, and the mining is more fully carried out. When the ore nodule density in the mining area is small, the speed of the mining vehicle is improved through the control device, so that the speed of the mining vehicle is increased, and the ore collecting speed can be increased. Therefore, the mining equipment can be fully utilized, and the mining efficiency is improved.

In another function, the control device is provided with a machine learning algorithm. By having a preliminary estimate of the expected nodule abundance, plus mud concentration and crusher hopper feed height, an indicative measure of the actual collected nodules is provided. Thus, this information is coupled with the visual image information of the front camera 1320 and can be used in a machine learning algorithm. This correlates the measured sound level with the nodule density parameter. The expected abundance estimate output (Kg/m 2) is the result of data fusion from multiple sources (sonar, visual, and three-dimensional laser scanning). For this estimate, other information can also be obtained on the mining vehicle, such as the height of the pile of the feed on the crusher and the pulp concentration (mainly the nodule concentration, since the sludge has been removed to a large extent). The information fusion integrates machine learning algorithms such as artificial neural networks or vector machines, and can adjust a plurality of parameters. Therefore, in actual operation, the system can realize continuous abundance mapping calibration by learning the relationship between the observable parameters such as acoustic backscattering level or image characteristics and the actual abundance value. When the working-level ROV is used for preliminary investigation, the initial nodule estimated value of the area can be obtained by analyzing acoustic and image information obtained by the preliminary investigation, and when the mining vehicle is actually used for mining, the accuracy of abundance mapping can be further improved by machine learning and data fusion together with acoustic images and video images obtained by a sensor on the working-level ROV. In addition, after the ore pulp dehydration and separation treatment is carried out on the mining support ship, the measured value of the actual ore extraction amount can be used for being input into the machine learning process, so that the abundance mapping precision is further improved.

Therefore, as shown in fig. 17, the abundance detecting device is detachably attached to the mine car body 10. The mining vehicle further comprises: a velocimeter 1410, and an underwater positioning device 1420. The velocimeter 1410 and the underwater positioning device 1420 are respectively in communication connection with a control device, which may be a control chip, a PC, etc. The speedometer 1410 is provided on the mine car body 10 and is used for detecting the moving speed of the mine car body 10, and the underwater locating device 1420 is provided on the mine car body 10 and is used for detecting the position of the mine car body 10. The velocimeter 1410 is a doppler velocimeter 1410, and the underwater positioning device 1420 is an ultra-short baseline underwater positioning device 1420.

The underwater mining vehicle further comprises a lifting device (not marked in the figure) which is arranged on the vehicle body and used for pumping out the ore separated by the underwater particle separation device. Specifically, the ore lifting device is connected to the ore outlet 3330 obliquely above the housing 3300, and the transport mechanism 3100 directionally transports the slurry mixture from the mixture inlet 3320 to the ore outlet 3330 and then to a mining ship or land through the ore lifting device.

It is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the examples described above, but that modifications and variations may be effected thereto by those of ordinary skill in the art in light of the foregoing description, and that all such modifications and variations are intended to be within the scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.

Claims

1. The utility model provides an underwater mining vehicle, includes the mine car body at submarine removal, seted up on the mine car body and collected the mouth, its characterized in that, underwater mining vehicle still includes:

the diffusion device is arranged on one side, away from the collecting port, of the mine car body and is used for buffering sediments in the underwater particle separation device and then discharging the sediments to the sea bottom surface;

wherein the underwater particle separation device comprises:

the conveying mechanism is used for directionally conveying the slurry mixture;

the suction mechanism is arranged on one side of the conveying direction of the conveying mechanism and is used for sucking part of ore and sludge in the ore-sludge mixture on the conveying mechanism;

the transmission mechanism includes:

the belt wheels are rotatably arranged at two ends in the conveying direction;

the baffles are arranged on the panel of the conveying belt at intervals;

the suction mechanism includes:

the mud suction main pipeline extends along the conveying direction;

2. The underwater mining vehicle of claim 1, wherein the abundance detecting device comprises:

3. The underwater mining vehicle of claim 2, wherein the mining rake assembly comprises:

4. The underwater mining vehicle of claim 3, wherein the rake body assembly further comprises a main rotating shaft having one end connected to the rotating assembly and the other end extending away from the collection port;

5. The underwater mining vehicle of claim 4, wherein the main rotating shaft is further provided with a second spiral portion;

6. The underwater mining vehicle of claim 3, wherein the mining rake assembly further comprises a swing assembly disposed at a side of the collection port and connected to the rake body assembly and driving the rake body assembly to swing in a horizontal plane or/and in an up-and-down direction;

7. The underwater mining vehicle of claim 1, wherein the diffuser unit includes a housing in which a diffuser passage is provided for the discharge of the sediment, the diffuser passage having a cross-sectional area in a direction of the discharge of the sediment that gradually increases;

the shell is movably provided with a swing adjusting assembly, an adjusting channel is arranged in the swing adjusting assembly, and the adjusting channel is communicated with the output end of the diffusion channel;

the casing still includes the discharge portion, be provided with discharge passage in the discharge portion, discharge passage communicates respectively diffusion passageway with the regulation passageway, through swing adjusting part, makes the regulation passageway be located the below of discharge passage swings.

8. An underwater mining vehicle as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 7, further comprising a pump means provided on the vehicle body for pumping out ore separated by the underwater particle separation means.