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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Article
Feasibility Study on Lifting of Seabed Materials Using a Bubble-Jet-Type Air-Lift Pump
Author(s)
Michio Sadatomi, Shingo Sugikubo, Daiki Goto, Kouhei Tajiri and Akimaro Kawahara
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DOI:10.17265/2159-5275/2015.10.001
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ABSTRACT
The present study is concerned with the lifting of seabed materials by a BJT (bubble-jet-type) air-lift pump patented by Sadatomi. The targets are methane-hydrate rich muds on the bed about 200 m in depth around Japan islands and rare-earth rich muds on the bed deeper than 4,000 m around Minami-Torishima islands in the Pacific Ocean. Feasibility studies were conducted using 50 mm I.D. (inner diameter) and 5.0 m long vertical pipe as the pump upriser, VC (vinyl chloride) particles and natural sands mixture in the methane-hydrate case, and ceramics particles with 3,761 kg/m3 in density in the rare-earth case as the deposits. From the methane-hydrate simulation experiments, an efficient operation condition with high VC particles to sands lifting ratio has been clarified. In the rare-earth case, the air supplies from two different midways in the upriser pipe have been tested together with the bottom supply because the air supply from the upriser bottom is very hard in deep sea. The effects of the air supply position on the pump performance have been clarified by the experiments and the simulations with a revised model applicable to the midway air supply type.
KEYWORDS
Hydraulic lifting, seabed materials, bubble-jet, air-lift pump, experiment, simulation
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