Effect of mud mass concentration on the working conditions of dredger’s mud pump

The cutter suction dredger plays an important role in the construction of channel dredging and sea reclamation. Dredger’s mud pump as the core component of cutter suction dredger, its high efficiency, the stable operation directly affect the work efficiency of the whole ship and dredging costs, but in the process of the pump with slurry, the pump body often appear the situation of the deformation and vibration, which may lead to linked to dredging pump pipe or valve parts lose or damaged, it had had a serious impact on the reliability of the dredger operation. In the dredging operation of dredger, the mud mass concentration often changes in a wide range due to the complicated dredging environment and variable working parameters. Therefore, the study of the influence of mud mass concentration on the working conditions of the mud pump is urgent to be solved.

 

• The stress of dredger’s mud pump is positively correlated with the mass concentration of mud. The stress of the mud pump increases gradually with the increase of mud mass concentration. The position of maximum stress appears at the wall of the impeller outlet near the tongue, which does not change with the change of mud mass concentration. The position of the minimum stress varies due to the periodic fluctuation of the total pressure in the volute.

 

• Mud pump vibration is significantly affected by mud mass concentration. The vibration frequency of each order of mud pump increases with the increase of mud mass concentration, and the difference of adjacent vibration frequency is small. The variation of mud mass concentration has little effect on the amplitude of mud pump in low order vibration mode, while in high order vibration mode, the amplitude increases first and then decreases with the increase of mud mass concentration.

 

• For different types of mud pumps, different concentrations of slurry and excitation vibration frequency should be selected during dredging construction, and when the mass concentration of pumped mud is high, the wall near the tongue should be maintained to prevent large deformation or cracks.