Experimental and numerical investigation of the effect of deep-sea mining vehicles on the discharge plumes

Abstract

During mining activities, deep-sea mining vehicles (DSMVs) are highly susceptible to causing massive disturbance to the seafloor sediment, resulting in the formation of plumes due to underlying turbulence and currents. To gain a better understanding of the dispersion mechanism of sediment plumes, both experimental and numerical methods were employed. The numerical model was primarily used to characterize the solidity and liquidity of the sediment plume through volume of fluid and discrete phase model methods, respectively. The experimental data were validated against the numerical results. The plume distribution was studied in physical experiments for three different DSMV parameters. The study findings indicate that the discharge of the plume in the near field occurs in three stages due to a combination of plume release inertial forces, negative buoyancy in the water column, and wall restoring forces. Additionally, the increase in the travel velocity of the DSMV reduces the propagation of the plume in the direction of discharge and instead increases its lateral spread across the bottom surface. As the size of the DSMV decreases in three dimensions, changes in the vertical vortex structure become dominant in the plume distribution. This leads to a reduction in the length of the plume head and a faster sinking of the plume. When the wake Froude number Frw is between 0.7 and 6.8, representing the wake turbulence effect of DSMV on plume discharge, the diffusion width of the plume on the bottom surface is linearly related to Frw.