Damen Wins Best Paper Award at WODCON

Posted by Eric Haun June 23, 2016

During the award ceremony, Slager (right) received the award from Michael Gerhardt, Assistant Executive Director DCA (middle) (Photo: Damen)

Klaas Slager during his presentation on dredge pump efficiency (Photo: Damen)

At the WODCON 2016 held last week in Miami, Damen was awarded the “Best Paper Award” for a paper on efficient dredge pump design, written and presented by Klaas Slager.

The WODCON is the annual conference of the Wester Dredging Association, where dredging specialist gather to discuss developments in the industry. In total some 120 presentations were held over the four-day gathering. During the closing ceremony held on June 17, the committee, representing the Dredging Contractors of America and Western Dredging Association, rewarded the best paper to Klaas Slager and his co-author Mark Winkelman.

Their paper, called “On the relation of Maximum Ball Passage and Recirculation Losses in Dredge Pumps”, highlighted their research results in the ongoing dredge pump design activity for the Damen dredge pump range.

Slager said, “It is an honor to receive this award for our paper. We are glad that in this competitive playing field, the paper committee recognized the quality of our work. For Damen – as dredge builder – it is vital to understand the relation between ball passage and efficiency of a dredge pump in order to be able to build an efficient dredger. Of course, Damen will continue to do research on dredging processes. We feel encouraged by this award to share more of our work with the dredging community.”