Experimental Investigation of Large Particle Slurry Transport in Vertical Pipes With Pulsating Flow

Abstract

For subsea mining, it is important to predict the pressure loss in oscillating pipes with pulsating flow for the safe and reliable operation of ore lifting. In the present paper, the authors focused on the pulsating internal flow in static vertical pipe and carried out slurry transport experiment to investigate the effects of flow fluctuation on the pressure loss. The alumina beads and glass beads were used as the solid particles in the experiment, and the fluctuating periods and amplitudes of pulsating water flow were varied. The time-averaged pressure losses calculated by the prediction method for the steady flow proposed in the past by the authors agreed well with the experimental ones. As for the fluctuating component of pressure loss, the calculation results using the quasi-steady expression of a mixture model were compared with the experimental data. The calculated results were different from experimental ones for alumina beads of which densities are almost same as those of the ores of Seafloor Massive Sulfides. It suggests that the expression is insufficient to predict the pressure loss for heavy solid particles. The calculated ones, however, provided those in the safety side. On the other hand, the calculated results for light solid particles such as glass beads agreed well with the experimental ones. It means that the expression would be applicable to the prediction of pressure loss for the mining of manganese nodules which are lighter than the ores of Seafloor Massive Sulfides.