Bubiyan 2011-2013
This page illustrates a concise description relating to one of the largest projects marine projects in the Arabian Peninsular from 20110 to around 2015 when the project was scheduled for completion.
The Master Construction Schedule shown above refers only to initial dredging works with a projected volume of no less than ten million cubic metres of materials.
The bulk of this quantity would be transported through approximately 4600 metres of land and floating pipelines. Please refer to the photographs to illustrate the concept.
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This dredger is the Carolina, a very powerful cutter suction dredger. It was used for the bulk of the dredging work on the initial stages of this project.
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This is another smaller dredger that was used in the project the General Characteristics of which are based upon the following Criteria.
Type of Material - Fine Sand
Maximum specific gravity of dredged materials - 1.5
Dredge Efficiency - 50%
Average Specific Gravity of dredged materials - 1.25
Percentage of solids by volume - 22.6%
Estimated productivity per hour - 975m3
Suction Pipe Inside Diameter - 670mm
Suction Pipe Velocity (mps) - 3.395 metres per second
Discharge Pipe Inside Diameter - 610mm
Discharge Pipe Velocity (mps) - 4.090 metres per second
Discharge Distance - 1676 metres
Equivalent Clear Water Head - 46.4 metres
Head capacity of Pump - 57.0m
Pump RPM - 320
Pump Efficiency - 56%
Drive System Efficiency - 97%
Engine Horsepower -1,673
The materials on the seabed are broken down and propelled in suspension through pipelines such as these. The velocity of the mixture varies between about 3.9m/s and 5.5m/s.
In the pictures above, it can be seen that these land lines have been placed upon a temporary causeway stretching through the tidal zone some 3.6km in length and a variable width of up to 20 metres.
This took a huge amount of materials that had to be trucked in from borrow areas located approximately 70 kilometres from the project site. The huge costs of these temporary works were factored into the bidding process. We had to allow for high losses due to tidal and wave/wind action which erodes the temporary works.