Sand-mud erosion from a soil mechanical perspective

‘Wetlands’ in tidal lagoons and estuaries are among the most valuable ecosystems in the world. Managing these systems requires both a thorough knowledge and validated tools to predict their behavior and development. An important morpho-dynamic process herein is the erosion (‘pick-up’) of the bed, which are in inter-tidal areas often composed of...

Consolidation and strength evolution of Dollard mud: Measurement report on laboratory experiments

Many harbours in the world suffer from high siltation rates in their basins. To guarantee safe shipping, harbour authorities have to maintain the navigable depth by having dredged large amounts of mud. Some authorities relate the navigable depth to a depth at which the density is equal to a certain value, e.g. 1200 kg/m3. However, the shear...

Laboratory experiments on consolidation and strength evolution of mud layers

Many harbours in the world suffer from high siltation rates in their basins. To guarantee safe shipping, harbour authorities have to maintain the navigable depth by dredging large amounts of mud. Some authorities relate the navigable depth to the depth at which the density is equal to a certain value, e.g. 1200 kg/m3. However, the shear strength...

Consolidation and strength evolution of Caland-Beer Channel mud: Measurement report on laboratory experiments

Many harbours in the world suffer from high siltation rates in their basins. To guarantee safe shipping, harbour authorities have to maintain the navigable depth by having dredged large amounts of mud. Some authorities relate the navigable depth to a depth at which the density is equal to a certain value, e.g. 1200 kg/m3. However,the shear...

The Ems/Dollard estuary: A physical system description

In 1993 an interdisciplinary research programme on the behaviour of mud in tidal waters was initiated by the The Board of NWO-BOA. The programme aims at obtaining more detailed insight in the dominant processes that govern the transport behaviour of mud. These processes have strong time variability and therefore the general approach is to obtain...

Consolidation theory and rheology of mud: A literature survey

In the framework of project Strength evolution of soft consolidating mud layers, financially supported by the Netherlands Foundation of Technology, a literature survey on consolidation theory and rheological modelling of mud was carried out. A consolidation theory, focused on the Gibson equation (Gibson et al., 1967), is presented. The solution...

Liquefaction and erosion of mud due to waves and current: Experiments on Westwald Clay

A research project was carried out at the Delft University of Technology in order to study the interaction between waves as weil as a current and a muddy bed. For this purpose several experiments were made on two artificial clays, namely China Clay and Westwald Clay. The results of the experiments on China Clay were reported by De Wit (1994). In...