Study of the Tractive Performance of a Deep-Sea Mining Vehicle Based on the Soil Failure Mode

Abstract

Deep-sea mining vehicles (DSMVs) generate tremendous traction and provide excellent maneuverability, making them the preferred choice for deep-sea mining. The source of this immense traction lies in the shear forces generated by the interaction between the vehicle tracks and the deep-sea soil during underwater operations. Therefore, studying soil failure patterns caused by motion trajectories is crucial for evaluating the traction performance of DSMVs. In light of that, this study adopts the discrete-element method to investigate the influence of height/spacing ratio (r) on soil failure mode, putting into consideration the relationships among r, soil failure mode, and soil thrust in the analysis. Through analysis, it can be inferred that under the condition of a relatively large track height/spacing ratio, the failure of the soil behind the track can be approximately regarded as a direct shear failure mode. As the track height/spacing ratio decreases, the failure zone of the soil behind the track will exhibit uniformly distributed inclined shear surfaces. Based on the interaction between the track grouser and the soil and the failure mode of the soil behind the track, we have developed a new calculation model for the traction force of a crawler-type mining vehicle.