Van Oord

Van Oord is a world leading contractor in dredging, marine and offshore projects and an innovative partner for its clients. The projects include: the construction of marine oil and gas facilities, deepening and maintenance of ports, land reclamation, coastal protection, and the construction of offshore wind parks.

Recent interesting examples of land reclamation projects are the artificial Palm Jumeirah and The World islands off the coast of Dubai. These islands arose with sand from the sea by the use of trailing suction hopper dredgers.

A trailing suction hopper dredger is capable of sucking sand from the seabed utilizing a suction tube. This sand is stored in the hopper of the ship and can later be released through underwater hatches or sprayed above water through a nozzle.

For a new trailing suction hopper dredger Fortan has designed a hoisting device for the suction tube. Using traditional ACAD software, a step diagram of the path of the lifting movement of the suction tube was plotted. Feeding these data into Solid Works Simulation and Powerframe software, a FEM stress calculation was performed which was used to optimize the final design. In addition, using Inventor software, the detail drawings for the suction tube and the general layout of the gantries were generated.

© 2012 Fortan B.V.