Introduction
The underwater mining subsystem is mainly used to collect ore from the seabed by underwater mining vehicles or other equipment. Since the exploration of the polymetallic nodule buried in the deep seabed was first started in the 1960s, it has now been extended to the other mineral resources such as polymetallic sulfide and cobalt-rich crusts. Correspondingly, the underwater mining technology and equipment have also been developed from a simple bucket mining subsystem to towed mining subsystem, then to shuttle subsystem and to current self-propelled mining subsystem to achieve accurate mining.
Bucket Mining Subsystem and Towed Mining Subsystem
In 1960, the technical scheme of towing cable with a bucket to obtain the nodule was put forward. Deep-sea mining test was completed to collect the nodule with the bucket mining subsystem, as shown in Fig. 1. It is difficult to obtain better economic benefits because...
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Wu, H. (2021). Underwater Mining System. In: Cui, W., Fu, S., Hu, Z. (eds) Encyclopedia of Ocean Engineering. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6963-5_85-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6963-5_85-1
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