How does digging depth affect solids production on a dredge with a hull mounted dredge pump?
In general, a dredge with a hull mounted pump will produce less material as the digging depth increases. At deeper depths it takes more energy to overcome two things; one, lifting the material from the deeper depth up to the pump, and two, the increased friction due to a longer suction pipe. As long as this energy – expressed in feet for suction head losses – is less than about 30 ft (9 m) (1 atmosphere), the negative impact on production is very minimal. When the digging depth increases to where the suction head losses exceed 30 ft, then the negative impact on production becomes more pronounced; i.e. less production with every added foot of digging depth.
