INFLATER - Development of a universal flood protection tool using the force of the water to protect against floods
Year by year, serious floods continue to threaten the personal and economic lives of European citizens and businesses and there is also a significant concern for Europe’s cultural heritage and the potential loss of historic structures. In response to severe floods, the European Commission launched the INFLATER project as a concerted action to help reduce the severity of flood events and the damage caused by uncontrolled water. INFLATER is addressing the following needs: Prevention: preventing human and property damage caused by river or sea floods, suddan heavy rain causing flash flood or any other form of uncontrolled water Protection: taking preliminary measures to reduce the impact of floods on specific sensitive locations, from special industrial areas through individual residential buildings to downtown historic buildings. Preparedness: the proposed INFLATER technology will automatically respond to increasing water levels, protecting human life, land and property even when the owner is away. Possible end-users of the system are individual household persons, weekend house owners, municipalities, water management agencies, disaster responding institutions, mobile flood protection producers, manufacturers and distributors. Project Objectives - To measure the need and demand for enhanced mobile flood protection tools in Europe - To get applicable feedbacks to the system specification from possible European end-users - To gain an in-depth understanding of flood behaviour by studying past floods in Europe and by modelling possible future scenarios. - To prepare the system specification of INFLATER based on end-user feedbacks and analysed flood behaviour tendencies - To modell, calculate and select the optimal shape and material of the prototype - To design INFLATER - To assemble and build the prototype based on the CAD drawings - To validate INFLATER on laboratory scale according to the latest PAS 1188-2:2009 BSi standard - To field test and demonstrate the working prototype between real life conditions - To replace cost and labour intensive conventional flood protection methods, like sandbags - To manage and protect the Intellectual Property Rights of the participating project SME partners - To disseminate the non-confidential results of the project on the broadest possible level Results so far Taking into consideration the technical system specification based on an extensive European end-user survey, INFLATER was designed with the assistance of sophisticated Finite Element Analysis and Computational Fluid Dynamics modelling techniques. With the setting up of a complex mathemathical model, the most ideal shape and build material for INFLATER was selected to withstand the forces of water even in extreme conditions (high velocity paralell currents, waves, puncturing effects of debris, etc.). The design phase continued with the material characterisation and based on the final CAD drawings of the prototype, INFLATER was manufactured. The system is now ready for validation on laboratory scale and on the field at various test locations.
Countries
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia, United Kingdom