Flood protectionBetter defense barriers and technologies for better protection against floods

Published 17 December 2014

Hurricanes are devastating. Aside from the high, sustained wind speeds, they usually bring with them heavy rain, which can quickly lead to the breaching of flood defenses in susceptible areas. Now, U.S. and U.K. researchers have reviewed hurricane flood defense barriers and technologies with a view to helping engineers find improved designs.

Hurricanes are devastating. Aside from the high, sustained wind speeds, they usually bring with them heavy rain, which can quickly lead to the breaching of flood defenses in susceptible areas. Now, U.S. and U.K. researchers have reviewed hurricane flood defense barriers and technologies with a view to helping engineers find improved designs.

Iderscience reports that Haijian Shi of Pepco Holdings in Washington, D.C. and Kong Fah Tee of the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Greenwich, in Kent, U.K., writing in the International Journal of Forensic Engineering, explain that barriers can protect property and save lives during hurricane season. Flood walls, gates and joints are the mainstays of their design, but budgetary constraints, geographical limitations, and constructability often limit the implementation of the most effective barriers in some regions.

The team has surveyed the T-walls, I-walls, Pile-braced wall systems, sluice gates, and sector gates that are commonly used in hurricane flood defenses. From their analysis of the civil engineering and construction of these defenses, the team has devised a six-point checklist for the design of hurricane defenses that should be implemented to make the most effective barrier. These six factors should be considered when designing and constructing hurricane defenses: seepage analysis, global stability, short-term and long-term settlement (or subsidence), soil structure interaction, fluid structure interaction, durability.

“Hurricane protection barriers can be effective in preventing surging water from breaching and flooding cities,” the team reports. “They can also mitigate erosion to the shore and thereby can help maintain the stability of the shore.” An optimized and informed approach to the engineering of these defenses can make vulnerable sites much safer within the budgetary and geographical constraints of a given coastal region.

— Read more in Haijian Shi and Kong Fah Tee, “Review of design and construction of hurricane protection barriers,” International Journal of Forensic Engineering 2, no.2 (2014): 144-51 (DOI: 10.1504/IJFE.2014.066316)