Scale Model Test of a Self-Walking Vertical Mining System Using DTH for Seafloor Mining and Sampling

Traditional subsea mining systems use a heavy subsea crawler, which has a big drill and scrapes the mineral deposit horizontally and have limitations of seafloor inclination, roughness and softness. Also the traditional systems have issues from operational and economical points of view. Furthermore, operational and economical efficiencies are required for sampling and analyzing of mineral deposits at the stage of mineral resource estimation before the production. The objective of this research is to develop an innovative Self-Walking Vertical Mining System (SW-VMS) that overcomes these issues. The system is a fully submerged eight-legged jack up platform and is able to walk by itself on a rough, soft and inclined seafloor. It mines seafloor, obtains samples and analyzes in-situ efficiently. In the paper before previous one
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, Vertical Mining System (VMS) was introduced. It was a four-legged jack up platform where a DTH drill unit and a moving beam were mounted. Though the system had many advantages, it had a disadvantage in relocation, because an installation and relocation vessel (IRV) is required during the operation. The previous paper
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introduced a concept and preliminary design of a Self-Walking Vertical Mining system (SW-VMS) that eliminates the use of the IRV and reduces the project cost and period. This paper introduces a concept of sampling and in-situ analysis system and results of on-land scale model test of SW-VMS.