drege pumps

[mike 109444]

Anyone know what type of pumps are used by the "gold divers" on Discovery where they suck up rocks and pebbles along with the gold. I work with impeller and peristaltic type pumps but can't imagine how with the size of some of the boats a pump could shift that amount of stuff and not be destroyed !!
I have googles sludge and sand pumps but it tends to return result of impeller types.....
?

 

[rtbcomp]

You could use a venturi, but they're not very efficient and would use a lot of water.

 

[addjunkie]

Suspect the will use some kind of vacuum pump. Like a suction excavator. Quite impressive when you see them work. Either that or they just run slurry pumps to destruction

 

[8ob]

Think of a gulley sucker, its just a huge vacuum tank with separators to stop anything getting near the pump. Whatever will fit up the hose will go in the tank.

Bob

Edit: @addjunkie is already on it

 

[brightspark]

council use vacuum pumps on there gully tankers and they suck all kinds of crap up

 

[Pete.]

Could be an air lift to get it going but my guess is it's just a plain centrifugal.

 

[addjunkie]

Some diaphram pumps will pump slurry, sand etc quite well if its fuidised.

 

[mike 109444]

Well I though venturi but they lift some dam big rocks!
No signs of a tank as they pump onto the gold separator and have bars to remove the big rock before they get onto the separator belt/plate.

 

[brightspark]

here https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?gws_rd=ssl#q=gold+divers++pumps&spf=1496775771915anyone can be an expert on google

 

[wyn]

There is a fair bit of info about them.

It looks like a bog standard pump supplies water to a vacuum nozzle. This sets up a fair old flow in a seperate pipe that is the one that sucks the stuff up from the sea bed.

 

[mike 109444]

Just been looking on yt and found a home brew set up. As the guy is explaining it I can see how it works. On the TV show it's not really shown unless it packs up then you just learn just how many curse words (from the beeps) you can get into a sentence.
Thanks all

 

[Rig Pig]

Are we going to see a British rival gold dredge operation in the Bristol Channel?

 

[mike 109444]

Naw Ive been to W-S_M (the Brummy riviera) enough times...TO much mud