Living in Netherlands, I haven't hear about such a project. Do you know more about it ?

In general, you can save some Kilo watts by using empeler pumps and decreasing the speed of the materials which is not always possible (depending of the size of the grain).

Some specialists of long distance slurry pipeline could advise you about.

my email : nissnor-bulk@yahoo.com

regards

nissnor ■

Hola Diego,

Com esta usted?

Enertia, Enertia, Enertia, Friction, Friction, Friction, Functions of Hydraulic Head and Head loss, Pipeline Turbulance, Water Hammer, Water Hammer, Corrosion, scouring of pipes at elbows,

blown gaskets at pipe joints, last but not least build up of solids in the pipeline.

Added to the above;

I need a pipeline pig to clean the pipeline of build up on the bottom of the pipe profile/cross section

They tend to squeal and complain a lot when they are shot out of the end of a pipeline like a cannon shell :^).

Are you doing this as a thesis project or for midterm credits?

This is a hypothesis, experiment, conclusion scenario with few winners.

Any new advance will rely on a flywheel only to improve pumping efficiency at the dredge and no matter waht you will be fighting gravity and friction the entire time!!!!!

Have the desired production rate per minute/ gallons per minute/ tons per minute of the dredge cutter head or vacuum been calculated as this is number one.

This will also decide the pumping ability of the pump at the dredge head-not to discount hydraulic efficiency calculations required at sea level pressures and thier conversion factor at the dredges working altitude.

Have you researched the neccessary environmental permits and rights of way for the slurry pipeline? have you considered the noise factor of slurry and aggregate in a pipeline-noise carries much further over water remember.

Have you decided on a pipeline size?, A pipe thickness? A pipejoint lentgh? Will you rent the pipeline, lease it or buy it outright with the pontoons?

Have you decided the gallons per minute intake and discharge? what about friction? Have you even added hydraulic friction loss and gravities effect on the slurry to the mix beacuse it is lazy just like water or electricity

14 million watts is not all that much power either used or generated in either case.

How much line drop can you tolerate? Is the dredge pump direct coupled to the electric motor or a diesel engine with a power take off or driven hydraulicly with a separate hydraulic power system?

What voltage and amperage are you going to use for your project if it is elelctric only? is this voltage and amperage available to you for an ocean going electrical cable feeding the dredge barge with transformers near the shoreline or will a new installation be required for the project?

What about the berthing rights? have you aquired them? Or are you renting dockside space? You will require a lot of room for pipe storage and assembly no to mention the access to the dock for trucks carrying the pipeline joints. do you have access to a dockside crane for materials/fuel and oil tanks, septic pumping trucks for barges waste?

Any slurry pipeline will require huge amounts of energy with the neccessity of a booster station for your slurry at that distance.

Will you be using "Victaulic brand" grooved pipe and fittings mounted to floating pontoons to pipe the slurry as is commonly done? They are the fastest and easiest fittings/pipe to use for anything requiring piping in a portable mode.

Will you be mining the slurry of its aggregate portion?

If not why not?, as the sale of the aggregate will offset the cost of dredging and reduce the total expense as it will be sold as a byproduct only if it is not contaminated with heavy metals or petroleum.

Will you be prepared to excavate the spoil with conventional means and containers on barges if it is contaminated with heavy metals or petroleum?

Will you be using underwater silt curtains to control silt movement while dredging?

Do you have adequate staff expereinced in an installation for this type of work?, they will be required/qualifed for freshwater/ocean rescue and pass a swimming test.

Have you thought about a floating pumping station if needed?

It will require staffing around the clock for pumping and power generation; What about living quarters on the pump barge if required? will the barge have a maintenance shop and fuel/oils storage for the dredge or excavator barge etc

You will need full lighting around the clock to flood the work decks barges and excavator on the work barges and navigation lights.

Do you have an ocean going tug boat or large work boat with a flat deck and crane or barges with a crawler crane service to pay out pipeline and pontoons for the pipeline to the pumping station and shoreline?

How are you goiing to anchor the pipeline to reduce movement as it follows the dredge?, with weights and cables?, or pilings driven into the sea bed or fresh water site?

The spoil pipeline will require bouys and lighing to mark it if it is in or near a navigable waterway.

What is the distance of the dredge to landfall at the shore line?; what is the distance from the shore line to the dump area or areas?; can the dump area or areas in question absorb the water content with out flooding?; will you have a direct path for the spoil pipeline as any bends or turns use huge amounts of energy; will you have access to an crawler earth mover to move the discharge sled of the slurry pipeline when the time comes to move it to the next position to continue filling the dump areas.

I will assuming you will be either using a cutter head or suction dredge for same:

These units typically have a 12 inch suction or larger centrifugal pumps made by Gould or Wilfley or others.

Will the suction pump have a flywheel installed to improve energy efficiency?

The question remains will you be completely dependant on the

dredges pump system for movement of the slurry;

The othwer question is have you considered the environmental repercussions of the waste water generated by the slurry pipeline?;

Have you done any testing of the material to be dredged for heavy metals contamination?;

I will offer a less costly option to you:

a lot of contractors use a pair of long stick excavators with a number of spoil barges to move the excavated material.

one unit is on a barge working the areas to be excavated and the heavy tracked excavators sit on a moveable platform that slides in and out of the center of the work barge/a barge within a barge to excavate the spoil and dump it in the carry off barge or barges.

When the unit is on station it uses the dipper arm of the excavator in concert with twin telephone poles that are lifted and lowered with winches to move the work barge forward while it is working by pulling the barge ahead with the arm of the excavator in the desired direction. After this is done the telephone poles are lowered into the river, lake or ocean bottom.

The long dipper arm accomplishes two things; it can dig very deeply or over a long length at a shallow depth with a lazer locator and or fill several spoil barges at once in a stock piling scenario until they are removed for unloading.

The spoil barges are taken away in single file or individually to the spoil dump site and unloaded by another tracked excavator with a long dipper arm and the spoil is dumped in either an all wheel drive rough terrain truck or dumped on a spoil pile to dry out to be moved later-this saves work and energy by the way as it drys out and is easier to handle when it is rexcavated.

If the aggregate is to be mined out this is a perfect time to use a wobble feeder a heavy portable screener and water to wash out the desired sizes of aggregate for resale and to reduce the cost of the dredging job if the spoil can be reclaimed safely.

This is where the next part of the equation comes into play.

If the distance from the shoreline to the spoil point is one mile or more-2 kilometers a capsule pipeline using the same size Victaulic pipe and fittings to move the material with a blast of air from the shore to the dump site and return with the same pipe and you can move millions of tons of dry or nearly dry waste spoil with very little labor and espense.

This is of course assuming you will have one hundred thousand tons of spoil to move per year or for the job-I am sure you will reach that amount with little trouble.

On the return empty leg you can create electric power with a synchronus motor by using the return air to drive the delivery blower in reverse and generate electricity to feed back into the grid.

Capsule trains can be run singly or with up to five cars in a single train in the pipe with as few as one train or as many as you wish to haul the spoil from point a to point b.

The train or trains are fully automated with computer control for operation/travel/loading and unloading.

A drilling mud cleaner will scour the water of aggregate and give you clean dry cuttings which can be loaded into the loading bins for the capsule pipeline.

A drilling mud cleaner will also remove aggregate if sized properly providing it is not contaminated with petroleum or heavy metals.

A slightly modified pantleg bin used to load ore skips in mines is a system that can be used to load the capsule train and the spoil can simply dumped at the recieving point and carted away for dumping.

The pant bin will have a many as five legs to load five cars in the train at one time or only one leg to load one car at a time.

the bin feeding the pant leg bin or bins can be fed by a small belt

with a hopper at the ground level fed by a small wheel loader.

The trains can operate at 25 miles per hour or faster if needed and as I said before they run with out human operators so essentially you will only need two people to operate the pipeline-one feeding the pantleg bins at the stock pile and one carting the spoil away at the dump point at any one time.

And the capsule pipeline system can be leased or bought outright and removed, reused or sold at a job completion auction when it is done with the job!

To look at an existin capsule pipeline used in a quarry in Japan go to www.casu.org.

Also look at www.pneutrans.net for a canadian built system.

They also have a link where you can input all the figures needed for a system and they will give you an obligatoion free no obligation quote.

The question you have asked is not a simple one as the whole has many parts and the parts require the whole to determine the solution to the equations as you are dealing with gallons per minute,tons per minute, friction, friction coefficients, gravity,

present value of a dollar or peso or other currency, the desired outcome of the work in the limited or unlimited time frame.

It is fine to ask the question but more data is needed from you for a

HYPOTHESIS, EXPERIMENT, AND CONCLUSION SUCCESSFULL OR NOT. ■