A dredging pump is a submersible pump used for carrying out certain operations such as offshore marine and seabed sand dredging. They are also extensively used in other areas such as canal dredging, desilting projects, slurry pumping, beach replenishment, mineral extraction, booster pumping, drilling mud and other pumping duties where high solids concentration is present. They are mainly centrifugal by design with closed impeller with an agitator which lifts the sediments into suspension, creating a slurry mixture. This property enables the continuous pumping of media with a high concentration of solids. They have to be constructed with robust materials and components coupled with a low speed and high torque drive motor which is required to produce a pump with abrasion wear resistance as well as sufficient weight. The impeller and the wear plates along with the agitator are normally made from strong materials such as cast chrome. The operating shaft is normally short which is supported by a series of bearings and seals to ensure tightness in hard conditions. They are typically driven by electric and hydraulic drives with varying powers up to 500 HP which can achieve capacities of 1000 ltr/min flow rates.
