Design of a Barge for Small Scale Excavator in Narrow Canal

Abstract

The Sri Lanka Land Reclamation and Development Corporation (SLLRDC) is a Government Corporation operating under the Ministry of Megapolis and Western Development, mainly involved in dredging of canals, canal maintenance, and Civil Engineering projects in Sri Lanka. It is in possession of several excavators which are capable of dredging from large canals to small canals. The machines weight range is from 3.7 Tons to 25 Tons. There are several canals, which are narrower than the other canals. The width of such canals are 3 - 7 m range. Therefore, such canals could only be dredged using small scale excavator (3.7 Ton “Doosan 35Z excavator). Due to the unavailability of a small barge to accompany the 3.7 Ton “Doosan 35Z excavator, the dredging of such canals has to be performed manually, which consumes a considerable amount of time and labor. Generally such manually performed processes are not performed to acceptable standards in comparison to a dredging process done by an excavator. The present work was to design a suitable barge considering three main factors, namely machine dimensions, machine weight and canal dimensions. First, a default set of dimensions were selected and the stability of the barge was checked with the aid of the draught and metacentric height. Then a set of dimension were used and the most suitable set of dimensions were selected.