Numerical simulation and experimental study on seafloor sampling of an anchor-type mud collector based on SPH-FEM coupling method

Abstract

Marine sediments are important for research in scientific fields such as marine geology, environmental testing of waters, marine biology and seabed resource exploration. Among them, mud miner is an important way to obtain sediments. However, due to the complexity of the marine environment, the seabed sampling operation is a relatively difficult and complicated project. The structural design of the sampler, the operation mode, and the interaction between the sampler and the sediment affect the sampling effect, which leads to the low efficiency of the sampler operation. In order to investigate the main factors affecting the drag force of the sampler during seafloor sampling, this paper takes a simple and portable anchor-type mud collector surface sediment sampler as a study. This paper introduces the mechanical structure and working principle of an anchor-type mud collector, establishes a mechanical model of the mud collector seafloor sampling process and derives the main factors affecting the dragging force: internal friction angle; the horizontal angle of the bi-directional shaft rod; undercut angle [Formula: see text] of bottom cover and dragging speed. A FEM-SPH method based on the coupling of the finite element method (FEM) and the smooth particle hydrodynamics method (SPH) was proposed to simulate the dynamic process of mud collector subsea sampling, and the mechanical data of fine sand and clay were obtained through land-based experiments. Based on the comparison between experimental data and numerical simulation data, the simulation validity of the FEM-SPH method was verified. The results show that the drag force of the clay was greater than that of the fine sand in the experiment of cutting the lower cover of the mud collector into the fine sand and clay, the internal friction angle of the clay is greater than that of the fine sand; with the increase in horizontal inclination angle and the decrease in undercut angle, the dragging force gradually increased; The dragging speed ranged from 0.2 to 0.6 m/s, with an increase in the mass of clay and fine sand collected with increasing speed, resulting in a gradual increase in dragging force. This paper provides a new method to study the force of the mud collector, provides a theoretical method to reduce the intensity and difficulty of manual work in the sampling process and increase the efficiency of sampling.