1. Computational Tools for Water Security (Dr. S. Y. Wang) -in progress
The proposed research is to transfer the technology in
the area of computational simulation of water infrastructures to DHS to strengthen its technological base for preventing, being prepared
for, responding to, and planning to recover from major incidents on critical water infrastructures in general. The focus in the near-term,
however, is on providing useful tools to the local homeland security personnel for them to make the best possible (compromised) decisions
to meet the urgent need at the initial stages of major incidents of chemical spills in critical water infrastructures. The newly developed
technologies can also be used to identify the optimal designs of new water infrastructures and/or the plans for the improvements of
the existing critical water infrastructures, so that they can be less vulnerable to major hazardous incidents and better prepared
for and recovered from the chemical spill incidents if they do happen.
This project investigates the use of the recent advancement in material, structure,
and building technologies for the protection of critical infrastructures, which include governmental buildings, emergency response
system (police station, fire house, hospital), oil and gas pipelines, power and communication transmission towers, etc., against terrorist
threats, as well as natural disasters. The new structural/building technologies developed from this research can be used to improve
the survivability of these structures. The findings, recommendations, and tools derived can become a part of the decision support
system for local, state, tribal and regional leaders and emergency responders for better preparedness. Find project-related fact
sheet information for Molecular Dynamics, Atomic Force Microscopy, Particle Dynamics, Dynamic Mechanical Analysis, Impact and
Energy Absorption, AUTODYN Simulation, Component Simulation and Evacuation Simulation at the
OleMiss SERRI project.
3.
Specification, Validation and Verification of Imagery Products for Disaster Management and Response (Dr. Greg Easson) -in progess
The
goal of this proposed project is to create a reference key designed to increase the utility of imagery products for disaster response.
This reference key will describe the technical specifications for remote sensing data acquisition systems that are necessary to produce
data products that address the functional requirements of the first responder community and the FEMA Essential Elements of Information.
4. Mississippi Groundwater, Surface Water, and Dam Inventory and Vulnerability Assessment (Dr. Robert Holt) -in progress
Mississippi
groundwater and surface water (GW/SW) resources, including shallow aquifers, streams, dams, and reservoirs, represent “key resources”
and “key assets” as defined by the Interim National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) of February 2005. We propose three interrelated
tasks to 1) inventory Mississippi GW/SW resources and dams in a GIS spatial database which can be used for vulnerability assessment
and to parameterize numerical GW/SW models for additional risk assessment and modeling and 2) assess the vulnerability of these resources
to various threats, and 3) provide training to state agency end users of the GIS database and vulnerability assessment tools. The
GIS databases and vulnerability assessments produced in this effort will be developed in coordination with and provided to sector
specific agencies, including the Mississippi Department of Public Safety Office of Homeland Security, Mississippi Emergency Management
Agency, and Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (including the Dam Safety Division). Database and model training will
be provided to end users of these products.
5. Simulation-Based Decision Support System for Water Infrastructural Security(Dr. Mustafa Altinakar) -in progress
Water infrastructures such as dams, levees, water control structures, etc. are critical. infrastructures
whose incapacitation/destruction may have a serious negative impact on our nation’s security. We propose the development of a new
“systems approach” for carrying out threat-risk vulnerability analysis of water resources and water-related infrastructures based
on robust, state-of-the-art, realistic two-dimensional (2D) numerical simulations. The proposed approach yield spatial variability
of solved variables and various criteria computed by 2D numerical models, and thus eliminates the deficiencies of the currently used
one-dimensional approach, which is neither sufficiently reliable nor provides enough information for a detailed damage analysis. The
present proposal also involves development of innovative spatial risk and uncertainty analysis methods and procedures making use of
the rich level of spatial information provided by two-dimensional approach.
6. Structural, Material, and Geotechnical Solutions to Levee and Floodwall Construction and Retrofitting (Dr. Dr. Alexander H.D. Cheng) - in progress
The extensive investigation and research of the Interagency Performance Evaluation Taskforce (IPET), as well as other teams organized by the NSF and ASCE, presented comprehensive insights for the failure mechanism of the levees and floodwalls in New Orleans areas during Hurricane Katrina. However, despite the authoritative nature of these reports, very little work was done to address the enhancement of integrity and resiliency of the nation’s hurricane and flood protection system against future disasters. This research proposal addresses the application of a number of creative ideas that can provide new design principles and retrofitting techniques to enhance the integrity and resiliency of these infrastructures. We propose four interrelated technical avenues to address the vulnerability of the hurricane protection system and to improve the overall integrity and endurance of a reconstructed system. The tasks are divided into four tasks: 1) Geotechnical solutions for a resilient levee and floodwall system that includes improved floodwall section design to prevent overturning; piling and anchoring to increase the resistance to sliding; clay and bentonite apron to reduce the seepage; and levee back side protection to prevent erosion caused by overtopping; 2) Structural solutions to increase the lateral stiffness of the sheet pile system for load transfer to geotechnically reinforced stations, and to increase the bending stiffness of the buried sheet piles by cross-sectional design to prevent the formation of gap in front of the floodwall; 3) Material solutions that use a new generation of lighter, stronger, and non-corrosive materials, such as polymer composite sheet pile, polymer concrete, nano particle enhanced spray-on polymer coating, to improve the performance of the system in terms of strength, durability, and resistance against sabotage; and 4) Testing and validation of the tools, technologies, and systems developed in this research.
7. Development of an Integrated Simulation Tool for Predicting Disastrous Flooding, Water Contamination, Sediment Transport and their Impacts on the Environment (Dr. Yafei Jai) - in progress
In this proposal, developing an integrated computational tool and supporting databases is proposed for studying disasters caused by extreme flooding including 1) flood wave propagation under catastrophic conditions (dam/levee breach due to storm surge, high approaching flow, and terror attack); 2) water contamination due to industrial chemical spills, sewage/waste material, and debris resulted from flooding and hurricane impact; 3) dam/levee breaching, its associated sediment transport processes and breaching closure practices; and 4) flooding and contamination resulted environmental and ecological problems during and after the flooding. To make it possible for responders to study the overall situations as well as local details of the flooding effectively and quickly, all of the computational capabilities will be integrated into a Graphic User Interface to carry out numerical simulations, visualize the results and guide response and recovery efforts. Databases will be developed to archive the data collected to support the numerical simulations. Due to the nature of the computation tool, the data should cover a wide spectrum of information ranging from water infrastructure, hydrology, topography of potential flooding zones, contamination sources of industrial chemicals, sewage and waste treatment, inventories of high risk dam and levee structures, etc. The developed technologies can also be used for evaluating losses in vulnerable flooding zones and making plans for improvements of the high risk water infrastructures, industrial chemicals, sewage/waste plants, etc., and enhancement of emergency response and recovery plans, so that the flooding zones will be less vulnerable to major hazardous and terror attack incidents and therefore have better resilience to natural and manmade disasters. It is anticipated that the computational tool can be applied by DHS personnel and responders to make well-informed and/or science-based decisions by studying the outcomes of flooding and mitigation measure scenarios in order to minimize the potential losses of lives and property as well as the short and long-term environmental impacts.
The capabilities developed in one of the current SERRI project “Computational Tools for Water Security (CTW)” will be used in this research project.