Research on Wear Characteristics and Experiment on Internal Through-Passage Components for a New Type of Deep-Sea Mining Pump

The conveyor electric pump for deep-sea mining is a key piece of equipment in deep-sea mineral transportation systems, as its flow capacity and wear resistance affect the reliability of the entire system. In this study, aimed at solving problems such as mining pumps being prone to clogging and wear, which could lead to performance degradation, a mining pump with wide flow paths and high performance was designed, and hydraulic performance tests were conducted on the new pump. The test results obtained were in good agreement with the numerical simulation results. Based on the reliability of the performance test results, using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods, and taking the wear model into consideration, a wear analysis was conducted on the internal through-passage components of the pump under different solid-phase particle parameters and operating conditions, and the average wear rate on the surface of the predominant through-passage components was calculated. The results showed that the hydraulic performance of the newly designed pump met the design requirements, with different particle parameters and operating conditions causing different degrees of wear on the through-passage components. The wear test was carried out with a test pump, and the comparison between the test results and the numerical calculation results showed that the numerical calculation of the wear of the deep-sea mining pump was accurate.