Van Oord Dredging

Previous
Next

Enabling safe shipping traffic

Keeping up with the growing volume of maritime transport requires both port and waterway maintenance. Our reputation ensures Van Oord is the first port of call when it comes to keeping the world’s most important ports, rivers and channels accessible.

Ports play a crucial role in maritime trade and are of vital importance for international trade and our global economy. With increasing maritime transport and larger vessels, countries throughout the world are expanding their ports and waterways. Safeguarding the accessibility of these access channels and ports is paramount. Van Oord’s wide range of dredging equipment is ready and waiting to be deployed wherever it is needed worldwide.

Maintenance of rivers and channels

Rivers and channels make an impressive network of water connections enabling inland maritime traffic. To ensure that vessels maintain safe sailing conditions at all times, Van Oord carries out maintenance dredging works. Many authorities worldwide entrust us with the maintenance of their waterways in multiple-year-contracts. Our in-house experts of Van Oord Wasserbau deploy their specialised fleet ensuring the German rivers and channels are kept in perfect condition.

Trailing Suction Hopper Dredger (TSHD)

A trailing suction hopper dredger has large, powerful pumps and engines that enable it to suck up sand, clay, sludge and even gravel from ocean or river beds. One or two suction pipes run from the vessel to the bed. A draghead is attached to the end of the pipe and lowered to just above the bed, making it possible to regulate the mixture of sand and water that it takes in. A trailing suction hopper dredger generally stores the dredged material in its own hopper and discharges the left-over water overboard.

ham317

HAM 316

Learn more
ham317

HAM 317

Learn more
Utrecht

Utrecht

Learn more
Vox-Amalia

Vox Amalia

Learn more
Vox-Ariane

Vox Ariane

Learn more

Water Injection Dredgers (WID)

Water injection equipment is often used in small, shallow harbors, rivers, and marinas because it has good maneuverability and can dredge very close to embankments and quay walls. An injection boom located under the vehicle injects large volumes of water under low pressure into silt or fine sand to resuspend it. The sediment mixture transforms into a dense stream, which is then separated by gravity.

Some water injection vessels are built as demountable pontoons.

Maas

Mersey & Meuse

Learn more
Jetsed

Jetsed

Learn more
igazu

Iguazu

Learn more

Borr

Learn more

Baldr

Learn more

Backhoe Dredger (BHD)

Dredging a trench for a pipeline and backfilling the trench after the pipelay is often done with a BHD. In many cases a BHD can do this type of works more cost-effective than a TSHD or a CSD, when:

  • The water is too shallow for the use of a hold suction dredge.
  • Shallow water increases the quantities when using a cutterhead suction dredger because the trench must be wider, making the equipment choice uneconomical. However, it also depends on the type of soil. Therefore, in cases where the cutter suction dredger can achieve high production, it can be a cheaper alternative, even though it dredges more material
  • The soil may be too hard / stiff for excavation by trailer suction hopper dredger.
  • Rock lumps above a certain size cannot be dredged with cutterhead suction dredgers due to the cutting edge (opening size between the blades), the same applies to TSHD due to the opening between the blades of the pump impeller or the grid installed in the suction head. This can be affected by blasting within a smaller grid, resulting in smaller rock chunks (but more expensive). Rock lumps can best be dredged with a BHD.
Goliath

Goliath

Learn more
Razendebol

Razende Bol

Learn more

Cutter Suction Dredger (CSD)

All CSDs are equipped with a rotating cutter head, which is able to cut hard soil or rock into fragments. The cutting action of a CSD is powerful and, combined with the suction action, the material can be ‘cut’ into suitably sized pieces.

CSDs cut the soil according to a pre-set profile. The cutter head is a rotating mechanical device, mounted in front of the suction head and rotating along the axis of the suction pipe. The cut soil is then sucked in by dredge pumps. The dredged material is then pumped ashore using pumps and a floating pipeline or loaded into a split hopper barge moored alongside, which in turn can then offload the dredged sediment at the designated location.

Athena

Athena

Learn more
Biesbosch

Biesbosch

Learn more