E02 – Dredge Pumps, Hydraulic Transport & Cutting Mechanics
This course aims to build the mid-level technical understanding you need to explain what actually happens to soil and rock once cutting starts, slurry moves, and suction and pumps interact, so you can evaluate pump-pipeline operating points and equipment choices against production targets and practical cavitation, wear and efficiency constraints.
£299.00
20 hours
Focused, self-paced learning designed to fit around professional schedules.
Online, self-paced
Study online at a pace that fits your schedule.
7 sections
Structured curriculum sections.
English
Language of instruction for this course.
Quiz count: 5 total
Knowledge checks and assessed activities.
36 lessons
Focused lessons organised into a clear learning path.
Course overview
Designed for: engineering graduates looking for refresher courses in niche expert areas.
Entry requirements: an engineering degree or equivalent experience, plus a working knowledge of how dredgers operate and a basic grounding in soil mechanics and fluid mechanics.
Learning format: self-paced online lessons with audio read-out, worked examples, an interactive scenario, a system selection case study, flip-card recall exercises, in-lesson checks, an AI tutor that guides rather than gives answers, and graded quizzes. This suits the aim because you can work at your own pace and test each idea on worked numbers before moving on.
What you will learn
Explain how pore pressure, dilatancy and cavitation influence soil and rock cutting resistance.
Distinguish major cutting and failure mechanisms and relate them to material type, geometry and operating conditions.
Describe the breaching process and predict how suction-mouth movement affects sand production.
Explain how centrifugal pump theory leads to real dredge-pump characteristics and operating constraints.
Compare slurry transport models and interpret deposition-limit velocity, concentration measures and settling behaviour.
Evaluate pump-pipeline operating conditions against production, cavitation and practical equipment criteria.
Skills and knowledge
Cutting mechanics
Breaching
Dredge pumps
Slurry transport
Pump selection
Cavitation
Pipeline systems
Settling velocity
Course curriculum
Introduction
1.1 Welcome
Soil and Rock Cutting
2.1 Soil Response to Cutting
2.2 Storage Equation Basics
2.3 Bulldozer Effect Wedge
2.4 Cutting Failure Mechanisms
2.5 Rock Strength and Failure
2.6 Hyperbaric Rock Cutting
2.7 Quiz 1 (quiz)
The Breaching Process
3.1 Breaching Fundamentals
3.2 Permeability and Sand State
3.3 Wall Velocity and Flow
3.4 Suction-Mouth Movement Patterns
3.5 Optimum Mixture Velocity
3.6 Quiz 2 (quiz)
Dredge Pump Theory
4.1 Why Dredge Pumps Differ
4.2 Euler Equation in Context
4.3 Slip and Real Losses
4.4 Affinity Laws and Specific Speed
4.5 Drivers and Operating Behaviour
4.6 Cavitation and NPSH
4.7 Solids Effects on Performance
4.8 Quiz 3 (quiz)
Slurry Transport
5.1 Flow Regimes in Pipelines
5.2 Deposition-Limit Velocity
5.3 Concentration Measures
5.4 Empirical Transport Correlations
5.5 The Two-Layer Model
5.6 Settling Velocity Foundations
5.7 Quiz 4 (quiz)
Pump-Pipeline Systems
6.1 System Curves and Operating Point
6.2 Selecting the Pump Duty
6.3 Pipeline Length and Boosters
6.4 Turning Glands and Seals
6.5 System Selection Case Study
6.6 Quiz 5 (quiz)
Summary
7.1 Key Takeaways
Ready to enrol?
£299.00