Feasibility study on the installation of a lifting pipe by the tow method

A conventional lifting pipe for deep sea mining is usually very long and consists of many short pipe pieces. In order to connect these pieces, each piece must have a special connecting mechanism and this part is vulnerable to fatigue damage during long operation period. Moreover it takes quite a long time to deploy and retrieve these pieces at operation fields. To improve these structural and operational drawbacks, the pipe tow method may be applied. Among many tow methods, the most feasible method is selected and its applicability is confirmed using analytical solutions for static tow conditions. Together with the well established tow procedure, an efficient procedure for installing and operating a lifting pipe and a miner is studied to reduce down-time.