Underwater manganese nodule gathering equipment - has radial suction arm assembly travelling to=and=fro on rails inside travelling frame

摘要

Appts. for gathering manganese nodules from the sea bed has a wheeled frame inside which can be raised and lowered on an assembly with a set of radial arms (13) each with a suction nozzle (15) at its end. The assembly is mounted on wheels (7), to travel to-and-fro on rails (8) at right angles to the direction of travel of the outer wheeled frame. Adjacent a wheel (7) is a gearwheel (10) which forms a rack-and-pinion drive with a toothed rack (11) alongside each rail. This is a fro movement caused by the operation of a double cable drum (12) with a cable wound around it, pulled in a direction parallel with the rails. This drum rotates about the axis of vertical hollow shaft (1, 2) carrying the arms with the suction nozzles. The nozzles carry spherical supports (16) and the arms are attached to swinging levers (19) with counterweights (18).