A new setup to study the influence of plant growth on the consolidation of dredged cohesive sediment

Dredged cohesive sediment is progressively being used for wetland construction. However, little is known about the effect of plant growth during the self-weight consolidation of this sediment. In order to check the feasibility of such a study, a new experimental setup has been constructed. As an example, the effect of Phragmites australis on the...

How navigable are fluid mud layers?

This paper gives an overview of the research that has been conducted to get a better understanding of the navigation in ports and waterways with fluid mud layers. In particular, the up-to-date review of reported full scale experiments that involve real vessels is provided. To study physical processes, the<br/>full scale experiments are...

Characterization of fluid mud layers for navigational purposes

The objective of this study is to get a new insight into in-situ characterization of fluid mud layers. Water Injection Dredging has been performed to create a fluid mud layer in the 8th Petroleumhaven at the Port of Rotterdam. Four measuring tools, conventional multi-beam echo-sounder, DensX, Graviprobe and Rheocable have been used to monitor...

Seasonal variation of sediment flocculation and the modeling thereof as function of biochemical factors

The flocculation process and modelling of suspended sediment transport in estuarine regions is a hot topic in estuarine science[Winterwerp, 1999]. The flocculation is greatly influenced by biochemical parameters[De Lucas Pardo, 2014]. In this paper, we analyse the impact of algae on the processes of flocculation in the Yangtze Estuary, and we...

On the behavior of mud floc size distribution: Model calibration and model behavior

In this paper, we study a population balance equation (PBE) where flocs are distributed into classes according to their mass. Each class i contains i primary particles with mass mp and size Lp. All differently sized flocs can aggregate, binary breakup into two equally sized flocs is used, and the floc’s fractal dimension is d0 = 2, independently...

Influence of shear rate, organic matter content pH and salinity on mud flocculation