During the extraction of mineral resources, mixtures of water and rocks are often used to transport large quantities of ore. The pressure losses in a pipeline conveying this kind of mixtures change continuously due to the large variations of the size, density and concentration of the rocks transported. Therefore, continuous operation at a constant flow is often challenging. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. developed a solid and liquid multiphase flow simulator that evaluates the unsteady motion of particles. The predictions are compared with the measurements effectuated during a subsea mining test, showing a remarkable agreement. This confirms that this simulator can be applied to quantitatively evaluate the risk of unplanned outages.
