Intellection of Transport Mechanism of Multi-Mixtures in the Vertical Pipe by Air Lifting System for Deep Sea Manganese Nodules

Abstract

ABSTRACT In an air lift pumping system, the air is gradually lifted within the vertical lifting pipe by the injection of air into the fully developed sea water pipe. When the water velocity is greater than the settling velocity of nodules, the manganese nodules are floated with water in the lifting pipe. In this type of transporting mechanism of multi-mixture in the pipe, unsteady state flow should be considered due to the unstable behavior of air flow. Therefore, we have developed unsteady state transport model in pipe and analyzed for the flow of multi-mixture of air, sea water, and manganese nodules. From the results of these studies, we have proposed the system configurations of development of manganese nodules on deep seabed, that can be instantly operated in laboratory as well as pilot scales.