Abstract

Tracked deep-sea mining vehicles (DSMVs) interact strongly with soft seabed sediments during seafloor operations, which may cause excessive sinkage and vehicle instability. Variations in mineral loading and initial pitch angle are important factors affecting operational safety. In this study, the “Kunlong 500” tracked DSMV was selected as the prototype, and a coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian (CEL) numerical model was established to simulate vehicle–sediment interaction. The Drucker–Prager elastoplastic model was adopted to describe sediment yielding and plastic deformation. Different mineral loading levels and initial pitch angles were considered to investigate vehicle sinkage, local Mises stress in the track–sediment contact region, and attitude response. The results show that increasing mineral loading significantly increases body sinkage and rear-track Mises stress, causing the vehicle response to evolve from overall sinkage to rear-biased sinkage. Under the present model parameters, the reference critical loading for local rear-track sinkage was estimated to be approximately 5.8 t, with a sensitivity range of approximately 4.5–7.1 t under ±10% variation in the equivalent bearing term. Under the present model conditions, loading conditions of 8 t and above should therefore be treated as key risk-control cases. The initial pitch angle further aggravates asymmetric sinkage, especially under the 4 t loading and 4° pitch condition. These findings provide a reference for load control and attitude regulation of DSMVs.

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