From August 16 to August 23, Changsha Research Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (CRIMM) organized and completed the 500-meter-class sea trial of the national key research and development program project “Development of an Intelligent Mixed-Transport Equipment System for Deep-Sea Minerals” (a system for lifting ore-water slurry from the seabed).
The project is led by Dalian University of Technology and was developed jointly by 11 leading Chinese institutions, including CRIMM, the 702nd Research Institute of China State Shipbuilding Corporation, Ocean University of China, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Harbin Engineering University, Xiamen University, Jiangsu University, Sun Yat-sen University, China University of Petroleum (Beijing) and Taihe Ocean Technology Group Co., Ltd. Together they built China’s first intelligent mixed-transport equipment system for deep-sea mining.
The sea trial of the equipment system was undertaken by CRIMM. Overcoming numerous difficulties, the trial team successfully completed two full deployment-and-recovery cycle tests of the system at a water depth of 500 meters in the South China Sea, along with pump parameter tests. This was China’s first deployment and recovery of an intelligent mixed-transport equipment system encompassing rigid pipe, flexible hose, health monitoring, damage identification and intelligent mixed-transport control.
The sea-trial acceptance expert panel evaluated the results item by item across 26 assessment items in 3 major categories and unanimously endorsed the outcome, giving the trial an overall score of 99.7. The intelligent mixed-transport equipment system not only completed its 500-meter-class sea trial task, its functions and performance exceeded the requirements of the project mandate. The system substantially improves the efficiency of pipeline deployment and recovery and system safety in harsh sea conditions, marking another major breakthrough in China’s research on the intelligent, engineering-scale application of deep-sea mining equipment.
