A bucket wheel dredge system for offshore tin mining beyond the 50m water depth

A bucket wheel dredge (BWD) for offshore tin mining is part of the long term plan of PT Timah Tbk to identify new dredging technologies for mining in greater than 50 m water depths. Measured tin-ore physical properties are used in a new BWD computer model to investigate deep water tin mining. The model simulates the cutting and hydraulic transport of submerged tin-ore. The results show that hydraulic tin mining beyond water depths of 50 m is feasible. It is best to employ hydraulic transport for lifting the tin-ore from the ocean floor to the surface and to use barges to transport the tin-ore to land processing plants.