A pump is a device that moves fluids, or sometimes slurries, by mechanical action, typically converted from electrical energy into hydraulic energy.
Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing dams, dikes, and other controls for streams and shorelines; and recovering valuable mineral deposits or marine life having commercial value. In all but a few situations the excavation is undertaken by a specialist floating plant, known as a dredger.
A hose is a flexible hollow tube designed to carry fluids from one location to another. Hoses are also sometimes called pipes, or more generally tubing. The shape of a hose is usually cylindrical.
An airlift pump is a pump that has low suction and moderate discharge of liquid and entrained solids. The pump injects compressed air at the bottom of the discharge pipe which is immersed in the liquid. The compressed air mixes with the liquid causing the air-water mixture to be less dense than the rest of the liquid around it and therefore is displaced upwards through the discharge pipe by the surrounding liquid of higher density. Solids may be entrained in the flow and if small enough to fit through the pipe, will be discharged with the rest of the flow at a shallower depth or above the surface. Airlift pumps are widely used in aquaculture to pump, circulate and aerate water in closed, recirculating systems and ponds. Other applications include dredging, underwater archaeology, salvage operations and collection of scientific specimens.
Rainbowing is the process in which a dredging ship propels sand that has been claimed from the ocean floor in a high arc to a particular location. This is used for multiple purposes, ranging from building up a beach to prevent erosion to constructing new islands. The name is derived from the appearance of the arc, which closely resembles a brown-colored rainbow.
Queen of the Netherlands is a Dutch trailing suction hopper dredger ship constructed in 1998. After lengthening in 2009, she was the largest and most powerful dredger in the world. The vessel has been used in high-profile salvage and dredging operations including the investigation into the Swissair Flight 111 crash and in the Port Phillip Channel Deepening Project. It has been called "the world's largest floating vacuum cleaner".
Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge is a sensitive sand dune habitat located near the city of Antioch, California on the south shore of the San Joaquin River-Stockton Deepwater Shipping Channel. It serves as a refuge for three endangered species of plants and insects, and is closed to the public except for tours and events supervised by Refuge staff. The Refuge was established in 1980. It is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Jan De Nul Group is a Belgian family-owned company, with the financial headquarters in Luxembourg, that provides services relating to the construction and maintenance of maritime infrastructure on an international basis. Its main focus is dredging, which accounts for 85% of its turnover. Other areas include civil engineering and environmental technology.
The TSHD Shoalway is a trailing suction hopper dredger, owned and operated by Royal Boskalis Westminster, originally intended for the British market and built in 2010.
Dredging, Environmental and Marine Engineering NV (DEME) is an international group of specialised companies in the fields of capital and maintenance dredging, land reclamation, port infrastructure development, offshore related services for the oil & gas industry, offshore windfarm installation, and environmental remediation. The group is based in Zwijndrecht, Belgium, and has current operations on five continents.
A Slice of Reality is a work of modern art by Richard Wilson sitting by the Millennium Dome on the north-western bank of the Greenwich Peninsula. It consists of a 9-metre (30 ft) sliced vertical section through the former 800-ton 60-metre (200 ft) sand dredger Arco Trent and exposes portions of the former living quarters of the vessel to the elements.
A dredge drag head is used by a trailing suction hopper dredger to collect sand from the sea floor.
A trailing suction hopper dredger is a ship that has a full sailing capacity used to maintain navigable waterways, deepening the maritime canals that are threatened to become silted, to construct new land elsewhere or to replace sand eroded by storms or wave action on the beaches. This is made possible by large powerful pumps and engines able to suck sand, clay, silt and gravel.
Trailing Suction Hopper Dredger Congo River is the newest ship of the DEME fleet with the biggest hopper capacity: 30,190 m3. DEME N.V. signed a contract with IHC Dredgers B.V. for the design, construction, and delivery of the ship.
The TSHD Sospan Dau is a Dutch trailing suction hopper dredger owned by Sosban BV. The vessel has worked on dredging projects, including offshore aggregates, port maintenance, land reclamation, coastal defense and beach replenishment. The name Sospan Dau is Welsh and originates from Sosban Fach and Llanelli's tin plating industry, Sospan being the Welsh for Saucepan and Dau being Welsh for Two as the ship is a successor to the original Sospan.
Dredging Corporation of India Limited, or DCI, is an Indian dredging company which does dredging for Indian seaports exclusively. It occasionally dredges at foreign seaports in countries such as Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Dubai. It is mainly involved in maintenance dredging. Almost all the maintenance dredging in Indian seaports is carried out by DCI due to government regulations. DCI is also involved in capital dredging, beach nourishment, and land reclamation. The main seaports in which DCI does business are Visakhapatnam Port, Haldia, Kandla, Cochin Port and Ennore Port.
The first exclusively owned dredger ship of its type in the Indian Navy; the indigenously built ship is meant for dredging the various navy ports. The ship was designed to meet precise deepening requirements around the dockyard and port installations and in riverine or other places where deepening is needed. The ship which can hold up to 300 cubic metres or 500 tons of dredged material, has a set of 8 openable hopper bottom doors for disposal of dredged material out at sea. The main equipment of the ship is a 320-HP Cummins-855-powered forward-mounted crane supplied by Titagarth Wagons. The crane’s 15.2-meter boom has a working radius of 12 meters and hoisting capacity of 10.5 metric tons at a 46-degree boom angle. The crane’s grab bucket has 3-cubic-meter capacity and holds up to 4.5 metric tons of dredged material; and is capable of dredging up to depths of 10 meters.
MV Tian Kun Hao (天鯤) is a Chinese dredger that has been described variously as “Asia’s most powerful island maker” and "magic island maker" due to its capability to dig 6,000 cubic metres per hour of sand/silt. The ship was launched at Qidong in Jiangsu province in November 2017. The ship is apparently named after "a legendary enormous fish which can turn into a mythical bird".
J. & K. Smit was a Dutch shipbuilding company located in Kinderdijk and Krimpen aan de Lek. Its successor is now part of Royal IHC.
USAVEssayons is a hopper dredge of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Her primary mission is to maintain the entrance bars, rivers, and harbors along the coasts of Alaska, Hawaii, California, Oregon, and Washington. In emergencies, she can also be deployed to the Mississippi River. She is assigned to the Portland District of the Army Corps of Engineers. Her homeport is Portland, Oregon. She was launched in 1982 and remains in service.
