Rick van de Wetering Wins 2025 IADC Young Author Award

The International Association of Dredging Companies (IADC) bestowed the Young Author Award 2025 to Rick van de Wetering, Research Engineer at Royal IHC and Ph.D. candidate at Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. 

IADC’s Young Author Award is given annually to “stimulate the promotion of new ideas and encourage younger men and women in the dredging industry." The award is granted at industry-leading conferences, with 2025’s winning young authors selected from the proceedings of the 24th WODCON Congress, held from June 23-27, 2025 in San Diego, California.

Rick van de Wetering was selected as the Young Author Award winner for his contribution to the paper “A laboratory scale linear rock cutting setup to study cutting forces of blunt chisels.” Dredging hard rock with a cutter head, as used on a cutter suction dredger, is becoming increasingly important as drilling and blasting are often restricted. Understanding the cutting process and resulting forces on the chisel can improve design and efficiency. Literature shows most studies focus on sharp chisels and often ignore the normal force, which arises from wear flats that resist penetration.

This paper presents the linear rock cutting setup, developed by Royal IHC, to study the impact of chisel wear on cutting and normal forces. Repeatability tests with a sharp chisel showed consistent results, with a maximum variation of 16%. The normal force was slightly negative, pulling the chisel into the rock—consistent with literature. A test with a worn chisel showed increased cutting forces, with a much larger rise in normal force, confirming its significance during rock cutting with worn tools. 

Every year at selected conferences, the IADC recognizes the best paper written by authors younger than 35 years of age. The Conference Paper Committee recommends a shortlist of qualifying papers that make a significant contribution to the literature on dredging and related fields. Winning authors receive 1,000 EUR and a trophy of recognition as well as publication of the paper as an article in the IADC’s quarterly journal Terra et Aqua.