Engineering Research and Development Center Projects
1. Rapid Repair of Levee Breach - (Engineering Research & Development Center / Dr. Donald T. Resio) - Active
This research will generate a novel device and approach that has never been attempted for rapid levee repair. The device is a specialized fabric tube that can be moved to a breach site by helicopter or barge and then inflated with water and air. Referred to as PLUGs (Portable Universal Lightweight Gaskets), the tube should greatly reduce the required logistics footprint for levee repair. Provided the concepts are proven out with further testing on a full-scale level, the new technologies under development to refine deployment methods should allow helicopters or barges to transport and deploy all of the system elements. The full-scale system should be capable of “sealing” a man-made or natural breach in a matter of hours. Given the many miles of levees along the Mississippi River and in the rest of the US, technologies being developed on this project could be very important to the nation as a whole; and in areas with historic record floods from levee breaches, such as in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Iowa, such a technology could help meet critical needs for faster, more resilient response to flooding situations.