Dynamic

simulation of Cutter Dredger at sea

IHC Merwede | Ports and Dredging | Spring 2008

Summary For seagoing cutter dredger DARTAGNAN, a flexible main spud carrier system was developed by IHC Dredgers. Flexible suspension was obtained by a composition of hydraulically pre-tensioned steel wires. In order to define problems, test solutions and assist in tuning the system, a simulation research and development project accompanied actual building. Simulation involved the research of several influence factors, including the dredging process, ship- and cutter movements, spud forces and many other variables. The simulation study revealed that flexible spud suspension allows higher production and higher uptime of the dredger at rough sea state conditions. The article below is a global report on the project, including key-figures on the results. Mutatis mutandis these results are also fully valid for other types of cutter suction dredgers, including the IHC BEAVER dredgers, and open new operational perspectives for them.

Introduction If a cutter suction dredger (CSD) is operating in swell conditions, the normal forces on cutter head, swing winches, working spud and spud carrier will considerably and dynamically increase by swell influence. These forces could be disastrous for spuds and spud carrier components as simulations and experience have shown. So, when a seagoing CSD was on order for Belgian DEME, it was recognized that something should be developed to provide a solution whatsoever for this problem. This CSD was to be a heavy one: installed power 26,100kW, dredging depth 35m, suction pipe diameter 1,000mm and dimensions approx 104x25x6 metres would become the main characteristics of DARTAGNAN, scheduled for delivery in 2005. So, in general, high dynamic force values could be expected.

Additional to dynamic operational forces, swell influence also causes a second problem. If the sea state reaches a certain value, wave heights and frequencies generate ship movements that exert enormous forces on components, mainly spuds and cutter, so enormous in fact that operations must be halted. In such cases the ship normally survives on anchors with the main spud lifted and ladder hoisted, until natures violence becomes so great that shelter must be looked for in a safe haven. These realities urged the shipbuilders to look for a solution that could cope with both features. The purpose was to allow DARTAGNAN working longer in tougher design swell conditions, and to prevent extraordinary forces on the dredgers components and structure if working in those normal design swell conditions. The whole exercise had to be directed to increasing uptime and production.

IHC Merwede | Ports and Dredging | Spring 2008

1 From a 1969 IHC Holland patent on flexible spud carrier design 2 Damage to spud carrier bearings

In order to reduce damage, it seems reasonably either to make some of the CSDs components stronger, or make them more flexible. In this respect certain solution-directions have already been devised, earning even some patents to former IHC Holland as long ago as in 1969 (figure 1) and in more recent years as well. When thinking on DARTAGNAN started, it became clear that a host of potential solutions already was available at drawing board level. However, given these possible solutions, nobody could define the real problem with any degree of certainty. In the wake of that discovery, additional research started on the subject. For DARTAGNAN the decision was made to concentrate on flexibility. One or more of the CSDs components should be adapted so that forces would be limited to design level. The most promising option seemed to be flexible suspension of the main spud. Indications for that choice are evident: swell-caused damage on CSDs concentrates at the spud and the spud carrier wheels and bearings (figure 2).

Considered from the more theoretical level, a fixed spud suspension establishes a fixed perpendicular coupling between surge and pitch movements. This can easily be seen as a mechanism that will cause high forces generated by swell. It was decided that further research would include dynamic simulation of the operational process cutter-dredger-at-sea in order to find decisive and limiting parameters. Data was available at well-known resources as Marin, Gusto Engineering and MTI Holland, however not suitable for the solution of the current problem. So, IHC Dredgers Research & Development Department started simulation themselves, based on the available data. In the meantime building of the new CSD started. DARTAGNAN Consistent with the decision to go for flexibility, DARTAGNANs spud carrier design provides the main spud with flexibility in three degrees of freedom in order to cope with surge, sway and pitch movements. (1) It allows the main

spud to rotate over a limited angle in longitudinal direction; (2) there is a certain buffered space tolerance in vertical direction at the position of the main hinges and (3) the spud carrier can rotate in buffered mode in lateral direction. For reasons that will become clear in its course, this article concentrates on the controlled rotation in longitudinal direction (figure 3). This longitudinal buffer system consists of steel wires, tensioned across each other and connected to the spud carrier over free running sheaves at the upper and lower spud carrier. If the main spud is loaded by a longitudinal force, the spud puts a torque on the spud carrier. Consequently the spud carrier tries to rotate and the positions of the sheaves on the spud carrier alter. Now, one of the wires is stretched and the other one is relieved, so a counterforce against the spud torque is developed. The wire that is stretched is called the active wire, the relieved one is known as the passive wire. Which one of the two will become active or passive, depends on

IHC Merwede | Ports and Dredging | Spring 2008

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3 Schematic sketch of longitudinal buffering system aboard DARTAGNAN 4 The hydraulic wire tensioning system

the direction of the spud force. To protect the wires and to obtain the possibility to alter characteristics of the buffering, the wires are tensioned by means of a hydraulically operated wire tensioning system. This system puts a pre-tension on both wires, protects the active wire against overload and the passive wire against slack in order to prevent it from shattering peak loads. The patented wire tensioning system (figure 4) mainly includes the following components: Pre-tensioning cylinder fore side and aft side Minimum tensioning plungers fore side and aft side Load limiter fore side and aft side Pre-tensioning accumulator Minimum tensioning accumulator Pressure release valve fore side and aft side. The pre-tension cylinders have an hydraulic piston with a built-in secondary plunger. At the bottom side of the pistons the pre-tension pressure prevails, transferred to them by two load limiters, connected to a pre-tensioning

accumulator. At the rod-side of the cylinder and under the minimum tension plunger the actual pressure is the minimum tension pressure, generated by an accumulator. Under normal circumstances the minimum tension plungers are kept against a stop. The system works as follows: In neutral position both pretensioning cylinders put a controllable pre-tension on the wires. If the spud force increases, the force in the active wire will also increase, causing a higher pressure at the bottom of the pre-tensioning cylinder. Simultaneously the tension in the passive wire will decrease. Until a certain level of forces, the pretensioning cylinders will not move, because oil flow is prevented by the outer position of the load limiters, kept into that position by the gas pressure which exceeds the oil pressure. Dependent on pressure adjustments the resultant force in the passive wire will become lower than the

corresponding pressure in the minimum tensioning accumulator. The minimum tension plunger now is reaching out, maintaining in this way a minimum tension in the passive wire, preventing it from falling slack. If the spud force grows larger again, the pressure at the bottom of the pretensioning cylinder will increase and the load limiter will retract. During the retraction stroke of the load limiter the wire tension will remain more or less constant. If the spud force increases even more, the pressure release valve activates and oil flows off. Generally spoken, this blow-off is an exceptional last safeguard action. The penultimate barrier against overload is contained in the spud carrier cylinders control circuit. Whenever spud forces become too high, this cylinder retracts, pulling the dredger backwards and so releasing cutting process generated forces. This action is automatically controlled on the basis of the pressure difference over both pre-tensioning

IHC Merwede | Ports and Dredging | Spring 2008

 Spud hoisting assembly 6 Active and passive pre-tensioned wires connected to the spud carrier in reality

5 cylinders. As a result, DARTAGNAN can boast a system that is able to effectively and dynamically buffer longitudinal movement and prevent unwanted spud forces. Figure 5 and 6 give an impression of how the system looks in reality. It is sturdy, one can say. Until the production stage of the dredger, calculations and further design issues were performed rather conventionally. However, when commissioning, basin trials and sea trials came within sight, an increasing need was felt to have insight in parameters and values to be adjusted, as they determine the characteristics of the system and its behaviour and the point at which spud or wires will break and ruin dredging capability. For this purpose the simulation, referred to earlier in this article, was to bring solutions. Simulation After doing a number of assumptions and processing standards about material properties, mechanical features, bending strengths, damping factors, maximum angles, allowed wave heights, occurring forces, etc, a model was created. Degrees of freedom were defined. The model comprises sub models of all components related to the longitudinal buffering. In fact, simulation with the model is an iterative process that generally involves three stages: 1. Derivation of spud carrier (quasistatic) characteristics for several variations of water depths, spud penetration depths and pressures of

the tensioning cylinders, only using the model of the spud carrier. 2. These characteristics are linked to a full ship model (CUDAS), to calculate the spud and swing winch forces (and much more internal forces) for a given sea state. The knowledge of CUDYN cutting force modelling is incorporated into the CUDAS simulation package. 3. The results (motions) are fed back into the spud carrier model in order to examine the dynamic behaviour of the flexible spud system and to evaluate/choose practical, applicable and safe settings for the wire tensioning system. The application of CUDYN and CUDAS learnt that just cutting forces however impressive do not contribute to longitudinal spud forces in a way that requires flexible spud suspension, but the forces generated by waves do. Cutting forces do not significantly contribute to lateral spud forces at all. More surprising: based on the simulations it can be stated with

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IHC Merwede | Ports and Dredging | Spring 2008

 Spud carrier characteristics  Spud reaction forces on waves with conventional fixed spud suspension not dredging  Spud reaction forces under the same conditions as figure 8, however with flexible spud suspension, applying one of the stiffness adjusting methods described

9 plausibility that any impact on the ship will cause longitudinal force values to surpass lateral forces again and again. This is for example true for wave influence, for cutting forces and even for the collision of an empty 4000 tonsDWT barge at an angle of 45 degrees and a speed of 1 knot (0.5m/s). Furthermore it proves that swing winch forces do not profit from a flexible spud suspension in lateral direction to any possible extent. These phenomena are the reason for the lack of attention in this article to issues, other than longitudinal buffering at least. Based on this robust intelligence a number of simulations was performed with the buffering systems simulator program, comprising among others: Determination of the spud carrier characteristics, i.e. the relation between spud force and rotation angle at different water depths and different pre-tension settings. These tests generate the kind of graphs as depicted in figure 7, where the relation is extended to the forces in the active and passive wires. Sharp angles in the characteristic correspond to the gradually activity of one of the systems components, starting in the origin with such a triviality as friction. Variation of pre-tension pressure prolongs or shortens the legs of all lines and will result in characteristics that were dubbed stiff, medium and soft. Variation of the load limiter pressure defines the level at which the spud force is limited. The rotation angle of the blue (force) line also depends on varying water depths and penetration depths of the spud. Roll movements, generated by the swing winches during operation of the dredger do cause more lateral spud reaction forces than longitudinal forces, even at flat sea surface. These forces remain, however, amply within design force values. The simulation in general predicts that spud reaction forces, whatever operational cause they may have, will not become critical at flat sea water conditions at all. The simulation also predicts that wave forces, even without actual dredging, will cause unacceptable and critical spud reactions in longitudinal direction. It proves that wave reaction forces exceed dredging originated forces on a conventionally suspended main spud two or three times. These forces decrease substantially if a flexible buffering is applied. More or less dependent on the adjusted pressures and pressure limits spud forcereductions of roughly 55-65% come within reach (compare figure 8 and 9). The simulation is able to predict the discerned influence of any spud carrier (stiffness) characteristic adjustment method. Having available these results, further study at IHC Dredgers concentrated on how they could improve cutter dredger availability under seagoing conditions in general. For that purpose five possible

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IHC Merwede | Ports and Dredging | Spring 2008

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10 Possible spud carrier characteristics used for research on flexible spud carriers for IHC Beaver dredgerscombination. The lines are isoforce lines with2200kN as design force and 3500kN as ultimate peak load under defined circumstances. This picture is valid for a fixed spud suspension. 11 Practical spud forces against real wave pattern. The number in a cell indicates the percentage of appearance of wave height and length combination. The lines are isoforce lines with2200kN as design force and 3500kN as ultimate peak load under defined circumstances. This picture is valid for a fixed spud suspension.

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spud carrier characteristics, including full-stiffness, were selected (figure 10) and exposed to practice-originated wave patterns and real dredging forces. This research was carried out for different types of cutter dredgers, including a standard BEAVER dredger. As figure 11 (fixed) and 12 (flexible) betray, the outcome simply is, that according to the simulation a flexible spud suspension, adjusted to a dedicated spud carrier characteristic, will produce the following results: In calm seastates much more swing winch forces and cutting force can be applied on the dredging process as such, without doing harm to the spud carrier and spuds. This is partly because the operator has now more insight in the actual spud force during dredging. This phenomenon undeniably allows the dredger to generate much more production. The lines of equal nominal and peak spud forces cover much more cells in the wave pattern table, which is to be translated as: the dredger can endure much more real sea states

before it is forced to stop dredging and look for shelter. Only one phenomenon is to be described yet, as it perfectly shows that although research is a matter of careful dedication and meticulous labour, it sometimes is unexpectedly facilitated by what can be called fortune, or good luck. The researchers met such good luck with respect to the cutter movements. At first sight it is naturally to expect that a CSD equipped with flexible spud suspension would be exposed to more cutter movement, and consequently to more varying cutting forces and swing winch loads, which have a negative effect on dredging as they require higher control margins. Now the good luck is, that cutter movements in reality do not vary that big as expected, due to the disconnection of surge and pitch movements. And even more luckily: the largest movements appear to be in the direction of the most common dredged profile (figure 13). So they barely influence production figures, and are

expected to have a positive effect on tooth breakage and to exert a smoother load on the cutter drive! Validation The simulation results were validated aboard of DARTAGNAN in December 2006 when she was working in Ras Laffan (Qatar) under really operational rock dredging circumstances. The proceedings included some heavy seastates which caused the split barges, assumed to be filled by the dredger, to seek shelter forcing the dredger to inaction. Waves were measured by a wave-buoy and the movements of the CSD were measured in six directions. As a matter of fact, the parameters of the dredging process were already available in DARTAGNANs state-of-the art Automatic Cutter Controller, developed by DEME and IHC Systems (more information in Ports and Dredging 168, page 13). The validation delivered a heap of data and proved the simulation model to be a good first approach. However, it became clear that some parameters should be added, that some

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IHC Merwede | Ports and Dredging | Spring 2008

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12 The influence of one of the flexible spud carrier characteristic-adjustment methods: more sea states can harmlessly be covered 13 Cutter movements at several spud carrier stiffness characteristics. Line colours correspond to figure 10. The figure clearly shows the influences of typical spud carrier flexibility characteristics on cutter movement.

influences in practice do not weigh so much as supposed in the models, etc. So the validation results are under processing at IHC Dredgers and MTI Holland until now. This will result in an improved simulation program, which will without doubt assist in designing and tuning of future heavy seagoing cutter suction dredgers. Conclusions The following conclusions are available now: Following the application of flexible suspension of the main spud, the spud is no longer the main limiting factor for operation of a seagoing cutter dredger in wave conditions. Flexible spud carrier systems provide real-time insights in actual spud forces, which generally allow CSDs to work more close to the margins of real wave forces. They also allow the dredgers to work longer than conventional CSDs when storms are forecasted, because they can survive higher seastates when laying only on the spud.

Sometimes the availability of the dredger is no longer the limiting factor in uptime management of a dredging project. Other equipment can be caused to stop earlier than the CSD. Not all characteristics of flexible spud carrier systems have been tested extensively. It should be done in the near future in order to find optimal buffer characteristics for different operational conditions. The system requires high skills from the operators and the crew during the estimation of which spud carriage characteristic should be adjusted in different sea states. These skills should be facilitated as they will enhance the efficiency of the system considerably. It is worth considering the development of a dedicated expert system for this purpose. Because of the dredgers extraordinary size, power and the appealing values of variables in case, this article mainly concentrated on DARTAGNAN.

Apart from that, it is good to disclose that the same simulation methodology was also applied on other types of CSDs, including IHC Merwedes BEAVER series of standardised cutter suction dredgers. It showed that the system can surely be applied on much smaller dredgers and IHC Merwede is now designing new spud carriage systems for these dredgers. These dredgers will profit of the phenomenon within their own dimensions and power. That is to say: increased production figures and operational persistence under increasing sea state conditions can be expected for these dredgers if equipped with a flexible spud carriage system.

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IHC Merwede | Ports and Dredging | Spring 2008