Design of demountable flood barrier

Abstract

In recent decades due to global climate change, hundred year floods have been occurring worldwide with frightening regularity. Flooding is a natural phenomenon of the environment however floods are known to be the most common natural disaster. Extreme global flooding with increased frequency affects both the developed and the developing world with catastrophic results . (A. Mugesh, 2015). The case study was lubigi catchment in Kampala city. The catchment suffers from flooding events occurring every year and affecting a large number of the population, mainly poor and threatening their livelihood. Flood evidences are numerous in Lubigi flood plains. Different coping strategies can be seen in every corner of habited flood plain where different structural measures were adopted by the community (Habonimana, 2014). There have also been various attempts (Dr. Richard Sliuzus, 2013) by the government to mitigate flooding at these sites in spite of which there still exists flooding in lubigi floodplains. Consequently, Lubigi floodplains were used as the case study of this project. A demountable movable community flood barrier system consisting of an assembly of components/pieces that are detachable to allow transportation and quick installation in flood prone area during flood season was therefore designed as a means to mitigate this flooding problem. The nature of this system is such that it allows limited access to the channel when deployed and may require disassembly to resume full access to the channel. The structure design procedures were used to build a computer program in Julia to implement those procedures as many were iterative. The program’s results were then used by a separate computer program built in python which built CAD models that were then tested with Finite Element Analysis software in CATIA. Using a flood height of 0.909m (3ft) that is above the flood levels range 0.6m-0.8m from (Dr. Richard Sliuzus, 2013; Habonimana, 2014),the structure was designed and subsequently tested for structural integrity or strength with CATIA Finite Element Analysis tools. The flood barrier was found to retain its structural integrity.