Simulation and Calculation of Hydrodynamic Forces of Components of Deep Sea Mining System

For the purpose of simulation of the deployment and retrieval of deep sea mining system, two methods for assessing the added mass of components of deep sea mining system are mainly proposed in this work. The first method is referred to as the Hess-Smith method which is based on surface panel method and potential theory, the surface of the moving object is discretized to lots of panels to approximate the object surface, and dipole or the combination of source and dipole are attached on each panel so as to determine velocity potential, then obtain added mass. The second method is referred to here as Fluent method which is a constant acceleration method based on the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software Fluent. The added mass coefficient of components of mining system which are acquired from the two methods are approximately equal, both are applicable for infinite flow field, while for the condition of free surface, including water entry, mining tool touching down the seafloor, the Fluent method is more suitable.