Abstract: Taking the deep ocean poly-metallic nodule mining in the international seabed area and the technical scheme of China’s 1 000 m ocean mining system as the engineering background, and according to the requirement of the simulation research of the total system’s integrated operation process, a single-rigid-body fast dynamic simulation model of the seafloor tracked miner is proposed and developed. Considering the integrated motion and constraint relations of the total deep ocean mining system, the single-rigid-body model of the miner is integrated with the discrete element model of the pipeline to form the fast dynamic simulation model of the total deep ocean mining system. Two new operation modes for the total mining system are proposed, which are defined as the longitudinal reciprocating motion and lateral reciprocating motion. Through analysis, design and simulation control, the fast dynamic simulation analysis of the two operation modes can be realized. The integrated motion characteristics of the two new operation modes of the total mining system are discussed with the miner moving along different paths, while the mining ship towing the pipeline system to follow the miner’s motion. The simulation results show that the motion states of all the subsystems are stable during the operations, which indicate that the two newly proposed collecting paths for the miner are feasible, and the two integrated operation modes named the longitudinal reciprocating motion and lateral reciprocating motion are reasonable. The dynamic simulation analysis of the integrated operation process of the total mining system can lay a basis for control researches of the total system, and further provide theoretical analysis and technical reference for the future deep ocean sea trial mining and commercial mining

Key words: Discrete element model of the pipe, Deep ocean mining, Fast dynamic simulation model, Integrated motion, Lateral reciprocating operation, Longitudinal reciprocating operation, Single-rigid-body model of the miner