Honma Gumi builds a relay pump ship for dredging work, and extends the pumping distance by up to 16 km
Image of a relay pump ship under construction (provided by Honma Gumi)
Homma Gumi (Chuo-ku, Niigata City, President Tatsuro Homma) announced on the 1st that it will build a "relay pump ship" that will be used in combination with a pump dredger that sweeps sediment from the seabed. The purpose is to respond to dredging work under various conditions. It will be possible to extend the pumping distance of the sediment sucked up by the pump dredger by 7 to 16 kilometers, making it possible to handle construction work at sites far from the sea surface disposal site. Construction of the ship will begin in September 2022, with completion scheduled for August this year.
The relay pump ship to be built will be 56 meters long and 20 meters wide. It is large as a dedicated relay pump ship. It has a displacement of 1980 tons and a pump with an output of 9000PS. Niigata Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. is in charge of construction. In February, work on rigging equipment began.
When pumping dredged soil from a pump dredger to a soil disposal site, the relay pump ship is incorporated into the path of the sand discharge pipe used for pumping, extending the discharge distance by relay pumping. This makes it possible to deal with construction conditions such as the distance from the earth and sand disposal site, and even if the construction area is wide, it can be stably thrown into the earth and sand disposal site.
As an environmentally friendly function, we will introduce a large storage battery with a power storage capacity of 120 kWh for use when anchored at night. The storage battery charges surplus power from the pump main engine during operation. As a supplement to the storage battery, FC modules using hydrogen fuel will be introduced to eliminate carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions during night berths. As a countermeasure against noise during work, a silencer with a low-frequency elimination device that eliminates vibration and noise is installed.
