Wim Kleermaker
After gaining a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from HAN University of Applied Sciences, Wim Kleermaker obtained a master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology, in the Netherlands. He graduated on the subject of dredge pumps at the company Damen Dredging Equipment. In 2021, he joined the Maritime Research Institute Netherlands (MARIN) as a project engineer/specialist. Within this role, his focus is primarily on performing numerical simulations for offshore applications.
Articles By Wim Kleermaker
Estimating sediment erosion of a centrifugal dredge pump’s impeller
Sediment erosion is a phenomenon of mechanical wear of components that decreases efficiency and uptime of the dredging process. Dredge pumps are designed to handle mixtures of water and solid particles with varying particle size from less than 0.002 mm to greater than 200 mm. A dredge pump’s overall effectivity in the field depends upon its uptime. Uptime is influenced by the number of times the pumping process is interrupted, which can be due to maintenance combating the material loss, clogging, etc. This research deals with the erosion phenomena by considering a framework of numerical models, capable of qualitative and quantitative erosion estimation, coupled with experiments for validation. Coordinate Measurement Machine (CMM) is used for surface roughness measurement before and after the experiment, thus depicting the material loss due to erosion.