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New repair tools for levee breaches tested

Posted by: Maven on December 6, 2009 at 8:37 am

plug #2From Engineering News Record:

“The next time there is a levee breach in San Joaquin County, Calif., Ronald Baldwin, the county’s director of emergency operations, would like to have some huge rubber tubes pre-positioned at Interstate underpasses, rail embankments and other strategic locations to contain flooding.

Baldwin was sold on the technology of using large, air- and water-filled PVC-coated, polyester-fabric tubes for flood control after seeing them in action on Nov. 9 at the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s Hydraulic Engineering Research Unit in Stillwater, Okla. The tests and demonstrations were conducted by the Dept. of Homeland Security’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Vicksburg, Miss.

The work is building on trials conducted last year in which ERDC proved, at a 1:4 scale, that tubes can seal breaches within minutes. “Our objective is to set a system within four hours, from go to close,” says Donald Resio, ERDC’s senior research scientist.

USDA’s 100-acre outdoor laboratory is the only site in the country with sufficient water flow for the tests—125 cu ft per second for 10 to 15 minutes. The supply is siphoned from the adjacent, 3,000-acre Lake Carl Blackwell.

Read more from Engineering News Record by clicking here.

December 6, 2009 · Filed Under Levees

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