Deep-sea sediment disturbance analysis using a tracked teeth structure
To investigate the disturbance mechanism of the track movement on deep-sea sediment during the trave-ling process of an ore-collecting vehicle and to establish a simulation model applicable to the role of mechanical structure and sediment—combined with an experimental and simulation water flume analysis—a control test was set up to study the disturbance effect of mechanical structure movement on the thin and soft substrate and the phenome-non of plume flow diffusion.The experimental and simulation results show that the offset zigzag tracked teeth per-form better in low disturbance,with<1.5 m/s as the maximum speed of disturbance;the subsidence depth and ro-tational speed of the disturbance source considerably affect the change in turbidity in the flume,with maximum and minimum measurements of the turbidimeter of 4 381.3 mg/L and 3 073.3 mg/L,respectively,having a difference of 29.9%,and a difference of>50%in the peak time.The Eulerian multiphase flow(EMP)model was construc-ted,and the parameters and boundary conditions were set.The simulation is near the experimental result and can be used to study mechanical perturbation in a small range.