Dredging Africa Pty based in Pretoria, South Africa, recently completed construction of the cutter dredge Mvubu – 450.
According to the company, the dredger – specifically designed for the South African conditions – was launched on the 19th of January 2017 in Cape Town. Commissioning and fine tuning of the dredge systems was completed by the end of January.
DA001 or MVUBU 450 as she is affectionately known was specifically designed to clean lined dams. It has a specially adapted horizontal auger to carry material to the center of its cutter assembly were the pump mouth awaits the incoming material to be pumped away.
This cutter is equipped with specially designed cutter teeth to loosen hard material and with high pressure jet nozzles to loosen and fluidize tough material.
A set of stainless steel wheels prevent the cutter mechanism to come in contact with the plastic lining on the bottom of lined dams. This is further avoided by the stainless steel protective cage over the front of the cutter shroud.
Forward and backward travel is facilitated by a treble winch system running along a navigation cable.
MVUBU 450 has cappacity to pump 450m³ of slurry per hour against 43m total dynamic head at 1400RPM. Power is provided by a Scania industrial diesel engine of 276kW at 1800RPM.
Control of the dredge is done by state of the art systems including engine management system, Deap Sea Controller, a SCADA system, pressure sensing and flow rate instrumentation, a nuclear density measuring instrument and other controls.
[mappress mapid=”23615″]