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US 2016/0176664 A1Published application
Subsea container transport system for deep-sea mining
AssigneeIHC Holland IE B.V.
InventorsPieter Abraham LUCIEER, Harmen Derk STOFFERS, Laurens Jan DE JONGE
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Abstract
A mining system includes: a vessel for processing mined ore, an upper platform coupled with the vessel, a lower platform supported by the ocean floor, a number of transport cables which extend between the upper and lower platform, and a container for containing ore which container is fixedly coupled to a container transporting cable such that the container moves vertically with the container transporting cable to transport the container in a container trajectory extending between the upper and lower platform.
Claims13
1-12. (canceled)
Mining system comprising;
- a vessel (1) for processing mined ore,
- an upper platform (2) coupled with the vessel (1),
- a lower platform (3) supported by the ocean floor,
- a number of transport cables (4, 5, 6, 7, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21) which extend between the upper and lower platform,
- a container (8) for containing ore which container is fixedly coupled to a container transporting cable (4, 5, 6, 7, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21) such that the container moves vertically with the container transporting cable to transport the container in a container trajectory (22) extending between the upper and lower platform,
- wherein a container transporting cable section (10) of the container transporting cable extends below the container, and in use pulls the container downwards for preventing pivoting of the container with respect to the container transporting cable, and wherein the container is coupled with a neighbouring container guiding cable (4, 5, 6, 7, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21) via a coupling element (9) for preventing pivoting of the container with respect to the container transporting cable during vertical transport of the container.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.