Light house pump

The dredge pump is the beating heart of a dredger. But how do you reduce both build-in length and mass without concessions to performance?

IHC Merwede teamed up with Airborne Composites to develop a revolutionary new concept in double-walled dredge pumps, an outer casing made of fiber reinforced composites; the LightHouse.

Together they managed to realize not just a significant reduction of mass but a reduction of build-in length as well, and on top of that the replacement time for the wear parts was significantly reduced. And the new concept opens up new possibilities for equipping the pump with a fully automatic open-close system, as shown.

Ultimately the project has lead to a substantial gain in overall output of the pump and, consequently, a reduction of exploitation costs. The development of the LightHouse concept is ongoing. The next step is a full scale test of the most critical parts.