Efficient sediment management is crucial to maintain accessibility into the port. This thesis investigates the application of the bed leveller in conditioning pre-consolidated mud, comparing its efficiency and impact on turbidity with that of the water injection dredger. The research is conducted for pre-consolidated mud from the Botlek in the Port of Rotterdam. Instead of traditionally reallocating the dredged material, the mud’s properties are modified so that it is safe for vessels to navigate through the mud. The WID is the primary conditioning vessel at the Port of Rotterdam. Since maintenance dredging is a logistical challenge, however, it is attractive to optionally deploy other vessels for conditioning purposes. The bed leveller, a type of plough normally used to level the port’s bed, could potentially be used for condition ing. It is cheaper to deploy and more easily accessible for the Port of Rotterdam. Therefore this study investigates if the bed leveller can achieve comparable results as the WID regarding conditioning dredging. To accomplish this knowledge, the research includes the design of a conditioning plough and testing and comparing it to the conventional plough and WID on a laboratory scale. The different treatments on the pre-consolidated mud are measured on density, yield stress and turbidity so the outcomes point out the differences in conditioning effectiveness and impact on turbidity. Furthermore, experiments are executed to discover what is needed to successfully condition pre-consolidated mud and the influence that frequency in a conditioning activity has. To support the findings from the laboratory, field tests are con ducted with the bed leveller and the WID as well. This experiment also gives insight into the conditioning efficiency in terms of production rate, costs and fuel consumption. The findings are that an improved design of a new piece of bed levelling equipment, based on research and experience in the field of agriculture, can increase the ability to condition mud. Stirring and mixing, breaking up cohesive bonds within the mud and suspending it, are key for successful conditioning. Increasing frequency in a conditioning activity, increases the effectiveness of conditioning as well, however this relation stagnates. Furthermore, the bed leveller can indeed condition pre-consolidated mud like the WID can. Although in comparison, a higher dredging frequency needs to be applied, for the strength and density of the mud to be reduced just as much. Thus in terms of production rate, the bed leveller is a lot less effective than the WID, resulting in higher average costs and fuel consumption per volume of effectively conditioned pre-consolidated mud. In terms of impact on turbidity, the bed leveller has less effect than the WID and the design of a new plough specifically for conditioning, contributes to reduced environmental impact.

Sedimentation is a common issue in navigating through channels, berths and anchorages of many ports and harbors. In order to address this issue, maintenance dredging can be done in three different ways; relocating of the sediments, keeping the sediments in place, or dredging with nature and using the natural currents to remove sediment. Trailing Suction Hopper Dredging (TSHD) is currently the preferred method for dredging and relocating sediment, however, this method is both costly and time-consuming. As a result, more nature-based solutions are becoming attractive, like the Water Injection Dredger (WID). The Underwater Plough (UWP) is another commonly used method usually for dealing with irregularities in the seabed. Harwich Haven Authority has recently developed a new dredging technique called the Tiamat, this is a new agitation dredging method and a potential environmentally friendly solution. The Tiamat employs a water injection technique to dredge sediment from the seabed. The system injects water into the seabed to fluidize the sediments and then uses a suction pump to bring the sediment plume higher in the water column, such that it can be carried away by the natural currents. To ascertain the boundary conditions for the Tiamat, tests were conducted at three locations in the Port of Rotterdam, each with different sediment classifications (cohesive and non-cohesive), current strengths (high and low), and depths. Because the Tiamat was developed by the Harwich Haven Authority, it was expected that the Tiamat would perform optimally in areas with strong currents and cohesive sediment at moderate depths. In order to evaluate the performance of the Tiamat, two other dredging techniques - WID and UWP - were tested alongside the Tiamat in these areas. The results of the pilots and monitoring indicated that the boundary conditions for the Tiamat are primarily influenced by the depth, currents, and sediment characteristics. The depth is limited by the length of the discharge pipe. The Tiamat has the highest production rate in cohesive sediments, as production rates tend to be lower in coarser sand sediments due to their higher tendency to settle. For non-cohesive sediments, a highly energetic river with strong currents is necessary to achieve a certain sediment transport distance. In order to estimate the performance of the Tiamat, the dredging technique is compared with the WID and UWP. Different parameters such as turbidity, sediment transport, development of the top sediment layer, depth limitations, the production rate in different grain sizes, fuel consumption and costs are compared and discussed.