Ever tried to eat peas with a knife? Didn’t fare well, right? Sorry, this post will not help you. It is just more entertaining doing so. And you might remember this week’s lesson.
After all the other posts, I would like to continue our tour along the exhibits of the Damen Dredging Experience. We’ve seen at “the Bank” that by gravity and hydraulic action the sand can start moving towards the suction mouth. Another well-known mechanism for collecting the sand is by cutting. This mechanism is primarily used in the cutter heads of CSD’s of course, but also in the trailing drag heads of TSHD’s.
Be aware, that the gravel sample in the exhibit is an artificial sediment, specifically designed to be porous and demonstrate the “rolling peas effect”. Naturally occurring gravel sediments have a wide range Particle Size Distribution and will have virtually no gaps between the grains. The smaller grains will lock the bigger grains in place and it will be more difficult to move them.
In this exhibit you will see two different types of sediment. Wet fine grained sand and very coarse gravel in a jar with a handle. When you rotate the blade in the gravel, you will notice a rather high cutting force, that remains relatively constant. The water can easily move through the pores. Rotating the blade in the jar with sand, is very hard at first. But as soon, as there is a chunk of sand dislodged, the cutting force is decreased dramatically. The decrease can be explained by the fact, that once water has entered the shear plane, it cannot dissipate back in the pores and will lubricate the chunk moving over the bed. This is a phenomenon, sometimes encountered with ploughs.
The theory of cutting sand is largely explored by dr. S.A. Miedema1. He wrote an extensive book2 on this subject and anyone interested in the details is encouraged to read it. Again, the basis for cutting sand is the dilatancy of sand, just like in the previous exhibit. The grains are moved and the water has to be forced in the pores. As the blade moves at a certain speed, the sand exerts a horizontal cutting force on the blade. Force, times speed is power. At this speed and cutting height you have a certain production. Power divided by production yields a Specific Cutting Energy3, which is a parameter for how much effort it costs to cut 1m³. The SCE is largely governed by the undrained shear strength and the angle of internal friction and is different for every type of sediment. They are measured with a Cone Penetration Test4,5. In order to estimate the production of the dredge, we really need to know these parameters. If they are not available, maybe you can receive the results from a Standard Penetration Test6,7.
From the equations, you can derive that for a hard material, the SCE can be quite high. Consequently, with a known installed cutter power, the production Q will result quite low. From this perspective, there is no upper limit in the hardness of the soil, anything can be cut. It is just, that the resulting production might be too low for a viable business case. In this respect, it is always difficult to say the maximum hardness of the soil the CSD can cut. Usually, the increased vibrations and unsteady process will limit the productivity in such circumstances.
This provokes a nice practical experiment for you at home or when you have you have to entertain guests at dinner: have a nice recipe with big peas and fine grained rice8. Serve the peas and rice separately and notice the variation of effort to stir the ingredients separately. Then, mix a portion together and notice the increase in cutting force. For enhanced realism, add some sauce. Exclaim your amazement to your perplexed table partners and explain that you are not playing with your food, but are on a study assignment for your work. Bon Appetit!
References
- dr. S.A. Miedema, TU Delft
- The Delft Sand, Clay & Rock Cutting Model, Dredging Engineering
- CEDA Webinar Specific Cutting Energy, CEDA
- Cone penetration test, Wikipedia
- Painted Hills, how to unveil the sediment layers below the surface, Discover Dredging
- Standard penetration test, Wikipedia
- Lessons in Camping: Basic Soil Investigation, Discover Dredging
- Nice rice-a-pea, Albert Heijn