Gopkumar Kuttikrishnan

National Institute of Ocean Technology | NIOT · Ocean Engineering

Deep-sea mining involves the extraction of valuable minerals from the ocean floor. The transportation of deep-sea mineral deposits from the seafloor to the surface is crucial for the success of deep-sea mining operations. The slurry pumping system is responsible for conveying a mixture of minerals, sediments, and water over significant distances. D...

The oceans comprise valuable resources that can be effectively utilized by mankind. Ocean consists with the mineral deposits such as sulphides, cobalt, and polymetallic nodules, presenting niche opportunities for extraction. India and other contemporary countries are working to explore these minerals with their innovation techniques. The current pa...

Deep-sea mining has emerged as an industry with the goal of extracting minerals from the ocean floor. To explore and extract mineral resources from the profound ocean depths, specialized vehicles designed for deep-sea mining operations are required. This research focuses on investigating the hydrodynamic characteristics of these vehicles, aiming to...

The current research article presents the experimental investigation to comprehend the critical suction height and the region influenced by flow around particles during the hydraulic collection of polymetallic nodules (PMNs). The present investigation employed a water jet-eductor driven suction pipe to collect PMNs from the deep sea bed. Rectangula...

A numerical and experimental investigation has been done to understand the critical suction height (h) and flow influenced area around the Polymetallic nodules (PMNs) for hydraulic collection of the PMNs. The experimental investigation was carried out by using an educator driven suction pump for collecting polymetallic nodules. The studies were per...

The current approach for mining of Poly-metallic nodules at a water depth of 6000m uses a tracked vehicle for locomotion on seabed. As the sea bed sediments are very soft clays, it is necessary to study the soil machine interaction characteristics. The extent of sinkage of mining machine in very soft clays is critical as the soil resistances acting...

Technology is being developed to harvest polymetallic nodules from depths of 4,000‐6,000 m in the Central Indian Ocean Basin. Polymetallic nodules are found on the surface and just below the surface of the abyssal plains of the ocean. A deep-water polymetallic nodule mining machine has to reliably move on the soft soil seabed and collect the nodule...

Mining of polymetallic nodules from the oceans, found in mineable abundance and mineral quality on the abyssal plain of the oceans at depths of 4000–6000 m, has found renewed interest with the growing demand for cobalt, nickel, copper and REEs. The harvested nodules are conventionally planned to be transported from the depths to the surface as seaw...

India has been developing technology for deep-sea mining in the Central Indian Ocean Basin from 6000m water depth. The Central Indian Ocean Basin (CIOB) is abundant in nodules which are rich sources of minerals like manganese, copper, cobalt, and nickel. The intended mining machine has to collect the nodules from the seabed, crush them, and pump it...

India has been involved in developing the technology for deep-sea mining in the Central Indian Ocean Basin (CIOB) from approximately 6000m water depth. The Central Indian Ocean Basin is abundant in nodules which are rich sources of minerals like manganese, copper, cobalt, and nickel. The mining machine has to collect the nodules from the seabed, cr...

Understanding the influence of low temperature and high hydrostatic pressure in the starting performance of deep-sea pressure-compensated (PC) induction motors is essential for sizing of the motor and upstream power systems. This paper presents the observations from experiments carried out on industry-standard 3000-V rated deep-sea PC induction mot...

The maturity of sophisticated numerical tools for predicting damage in composite materials has become a priority research area in aero- and underwater structures. This paper proposes a modeling approach to endeavor achieving high fidelity of mechanical behavior of composite materials subjected to high pressure applications. The strategy begins with...

India has been a Pioneer Investor for seabed exploration and exploitation of polymetallic nodules and has been allotted a mining area in the Central Indian Ocean Basin (CIOB) by the International Seabed Authority (ISA). National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) has been responsible for developing technologies for deep sea mining system for harv...

Deep sea mining is mineral retrieval process that takes place on the ocean floor wherein global industries are actively exploring and experimenting of different techniques in this relatively new concept of mining for extracting it economically from depths of 5000–5500 m below the ocean’s surface. National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), India...

The hybrid robot, will be a battery operated four wheel drive vehicle with a rigid chassis for all terrain operation. The vehicle will be suited for various payloads based on applications with geological, atmospheric sensors such as oxygen measurement, glacier thickness measurement, CO2 measurement, thermal properties measurement, salinity, buried...

The current approach for mining of Poly-metallic nodules at a water depth of 6000m uses a tracked vehicle for locomotion on seabed. As the sea bed sediments are very soft clays, it is necessary to study the soil machine interaction characteristics. The extent of sinkage of mining machine in very soft clays is critical as the soil resistances acting...

Motion of tracked vehicles, especially on soil with shear strength less than 2 kPa under deep sea conditions is an ambitious area to envisage. A tracked deep sea mining machine is being developed to mine polymetallic nodules from 5000-6000 m water depth at the Central Indian Ocean where the sea bed has a very low soil strength. Experimental and num...

The design of electrically operated integrated soil sampler rosette and soil analyzer is presented and discussed. In addition to recovering virtually undisturbed sediment, this corer also minimizes core shortening and provide water tight sealing to the samples. This system has the facility for multiple soil sampling and soil strength measurement sy...