Facts About: Cutter Suction Dredgers (Video)

July 10, 2014

Facts About is a series of concise, easy-to-read leaflets which give an effective overview of essential facts about specific dredging and maritime construction subjects. This leaflets aims to provide basic understanding of how Cutter suction dredgers (CSDs) work.

Although systems for describing dredgers vary, in general three broad classifications are recognised based on the means of excavation and operation. These are known as mechanical dredgers, hydraulic dredgers and hydrodynamic dredgers.

Hydraulic dredgers include all dredging equipment which makes use of centrifugal pumps for at least part of the transport process of moving the dredged materials, either by raising material out of the water or horizontally transporting material to another site.

Cutter suction dredgers (CSDs) are classified as hydraulic dredgers and are the most common vessels in the hydraulic/mechanical category. CSDs have the ability to dredge nearly all kinds of soils (sand, clay, rock) and are used where the ground is too hard for trailing suction hopper dredgers.