Reclamation area – Discover Dredging

New settling and sedimentation exhibit at the Damen Dredging Experience

Sometimes, explaining a part of the dredging process can be as simple as seeing through the mixture. In this exhibit we can demonstrate what happens beneath the surface of the cargo in the hopper1,2,3. Along the way, we explain some quirky behaviour in other phases of the dredging process, also. The exhibit consists of five tubes in a frame, that can rotate around a horizontal axis. In the tubes are various types of soils. Each with their own settling behaviour. The exhibit was recently added to the Damen Dredging Experience. One more reason to highlight it here.

Samples in the settling and sedimentation exhibit

One major part in the dredging process is the hydraulic transport of particles in a carrier fluid. Pickup and transport have been touched upon in previous posts4,5. Here we concentrate on the end of the process: settling and deposition. This can be either in a hopper or on the discharge area. In both cases you will only see the fluid surface during the process and at best the top of the deposited sediment. How the material came there, was deposited and stacked up can’t be readily seen. As the tubes allow these processes to be observed from the side, we can follow the events.

The exhibit can be started by upending the frame with the tubes. The material that sat in the lower end gets now on the top end. They all are released at the same time and we see immediately see the differences in settling velocity for the different particle sizes6. The gravel falls down within ten seconds. The sand is slower and the clay even has problems getting started. One nice observation is the mixture of soils. Against the height of the tube, the fractions in the sample are released simultaneously. Still, the fractions separate over the fall height and stack up again in their original order. This not only happens in the tube. In the hopper or the discharge area, a widely graded sediment will sort itself to the various fractions.

Table of irregular shapes (Source: Wikipedia)

Although for all the samples the particles are released simultaneously, you can still see a slight difference in settling velocity within each sample. This can be either due to slight variations in size that are possible within each mesh size used for sieving. Another cause for the differences might be the differences in shape. A perfectly spherical particle will have a faster settling velocity than an oddly shaped potato7.

Explanation of terminal velocity and hindered settling

And even then, the initial particles that fall down have a greater velocity than the particles in the bulk of the sample, even when having the same particle size and shape. This is due to the water flowing up around the particle. The upward flow is slowing down an adjacent particle. This interaction is called ‘hindered settling’. At high concentrations this can contribute to the efficiency of pipe line transport8. But for the settling it is really hindering the loading time.
At the very end of the settling, the particle gets deposited at the bottom, or on top of another. The water that is caught in between has to escape. This causes one last puff of fluid to flow upward and take the very find dust present upward. This happens with each particle that settles and causes the layer of dust to lift to the surface of the deposited sediment. So even when loading a cargo of gravel, you will always end up with a layer of dust on top. So, don’t judge the quality of the cargo just by the dust you see on top. Take a deeper sample or base your evaluation on the signals from the sensors from the screening tower.

Full cargo load of gravel, covered with dust. And the seagulls know that the dust layer also collects all the snacks

References

As promised, I still have several stories for you and this is another one. As you may remember, we’ve visited China for attending the WODCON in Shanghai1 and afterwards travelled to Beijing for sightseeing. A must see destination in Beijing is the Forbidden City. The epicentre of ancient Chinese power, the seat of the emperor. Once the exclusive domain of the supreme ruler, now a tourist attraction for the general public. The Forbidden City was mainly build in the Yongle era of the Ming dynasty2 between 1407 and 1420. It comprises numerous courtyards and halls and temples. All the buildings are surrounded by thick walls and a moat.

This moat is an impressive 6 meters deep and 52 meters wide. That is a big moat. But remember it is long: 3.5km around3. So, it is an impressive moat. Now consider this moat is dug in the fifteenth century. It has been dug by hand! Imagine, thousands of labourers digging, carrying and removing the soil from the moat. That is quite an operation.

To put this in perspective. The moat has a volume of 6x52x3,532m=1,101,984m³. Yes, that is over a million cubic meters. Even for a modern dredging project it is a serious volume. And digging a hole at one place is the first step. Where do you dispose it? At a dredging project, there is a reclamation area. As this was dry land, there was no reclamation area. So, what do you do with such a volume? If you pile it up, you can store a volume of V=1/3 pi r² h in a cone. Assume a slope of one third of the height to the radius, the height of the pile can be calculated and will be around 49 meter. And that is exactly what the ancient engineers did: they created the hill of Jingshan Park4. With its five peaks, it is not exactly a cone, but the estimated height was quite close!

Height marker at the top of the hill in Jingshan Park

The engineers had probably carefully planned how they constructed this hill and planned the delivery of the material accordingly. Nowadays, with the much higher production rates and shorter project delivery times, it is highly inadvisable to build a reclamation area with this height. There are several reasons why not to do it like that. First, it would take time to drain the pore water away from the core of the hill. Loading more on top quickly would make it very instable. Sometimes with disastrous results5. Another is when you create high banks, it will be easier for shear planes to form and collapse the structure that way. Lastly, a lower reclamation area will also have a larger surface area and more choice to select multiple locations to evenly distribute the material in volume and composition. A well designed reclamation area requires good knowledge of the deposited material and a skillful team that operates the equipment to manage the deposition.

Explanations of issues with depositing sand at reclamation areas

Based on the exposed rocks sometimes seen on the sides of the Jingshang Park hill, the core is probably consisting of bigger rocks as a kind of backbone. But not every rock found in the moat ended up in the hill throughout the area. Several decorative rocks can be found that have a typical size that could just be handled by manual labour. Just another tribute to the perseverance of those classic engineers.

Decorative stone in Bei Hai Park west of Jingshan Park

Tag: Reclamation area

Another Fascinating Exhibit To Help You See Through The Dust

References

See also

Deposition Of Dredged Material At Reclamation Areas In Ancient Chinese And Modern Times

References

See also