Experimental Research on Air Injection Assisted Transportation in Cutter-Suction Dredger

Cutter-suction dredger transports slurry through pipeline. But the pipeline is easy to be jammed and frayed because of huge resistance, resulting in limited exertion of dredger and high energy consumption. One of solutions is air injection transporting, which can reduce the resistance in pipeline. This paper makes research on the relations between pipeline distance and other factors such as slurry concentration, pressure of air injection and transportation distance. The test data proves that the key factors are slurry concentration and air volume fraction, and that high slurry concentration and low air volume fraction can reduce more resistance, and such reducing effect becomes weaker with the longer of transportation distance.