The innovative flood barrier system –
quick to set up and take down

The Challenge

Glob­al warm­ing result­ing in cli­mate change and shifts in weath­er pat­terns has result­ed in increased risk of heavy rain­storms and their accom­pa­ny­ing floods. This does not only apply to areas already iden­ti­fied or well-known as flood plains but extend­ed flood areas are more common.

The Way

The inno­v­a­tive HydroSwizz Flood Bar­ri­er is ready for ser­vice with­in a very short time and, when the flood has sub­sided, it is as quick­ly dis­man­tled and packed away, requir­ing only a min­i­mum of stor­age space.

The System

The inno­v­a­tive zigzag design is based on “anchor pro­files”, set at an angle of 135° to each oth­er and fit­ted flush to the ground into a pre­pared con­crete foundation.
The pro­files and the foun­da­tions are the only per­ma­nent parts of the sys­tem. There are no raised ele­ments so that in nor­mal dry con­di­tions there is no vis­i­ble impact or trip haz­ards. For the most part the sys­tem is unob­tru­sive dur­ing dry periods.
The steel sheets mak­ing up the bar­ri­er are slot­ted into the pre-formed pro­file. The receiv­ing groove, into which the anchor pro­files and there­fore the steel sheets, are insert­ed, must face away from the water. As the water lev­el ris­es, the water pres­sure push­es the bar­ri­er sheets tighter against the seal in the slot­ting groove, thus increas­ing the seal’s effec­tive­ness. The bar­ri­er remains water­tight against the ris­ing flood­wa­ter. A bolt­ing strip is used to fix the sheets togeth­er in a zigzag path giv­ing the pro­tec­tion bar­ri­er sub­stan­tial sta­bil­i­ty and mak­ing extra sup­port­ing struc­tures unnecessary.
The patent­ed mobile flood bar­ri­er pro­tec­tion sys­tem has under­gone rig­or­ous test­ing. Finite ele­ment analy­sis for var­i­ous crit­i­cal load cas­es has been applied; this includes the case of a car col­lid­ing from the land­ward side or increased pres­sure from float­ing debris on the water side.
Pro­fes­sor Dr.-Ing. M. Feld­mann from the Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty in Aachen con­cludes that, ”The mobile flood pro­tec­tion bar­ri­er sys­tem ful­fils all rel­e­vant require­ments of bound­ary con­di­tions to pro­vide ample secu­ri­ty. Its strong fea­ture is flex­i­bil­i­ty of design which allows extreme ver­sa­til­i­ty of appli­ca­tion. The sys­tem is sim­ple and quick to erect which makes it a very promis­ing solu­tion for portable flood­wa­ter protection.”

Sandbag substitution

HydroSwizz Emer­gency Flood Bar­ri­er with ground seal­ing pro­vides a flex­i­ble, quick­ly-mount­ed alter­na­tive to the labo­ri­ous fill­ing and stack­ing of count­less sandbags.

The Advantages

• quick and easy mounting
• com­pet­i­tive cost com-pared to oth­er flood pro­tec­tion systems
• up to 2 m pro­tec­tion height
• no sup­ports no ground bolting
• robust sys­tem, pre­mi­um VA steel, steel or aluminium
• easy logis­tics with one design for all pro­tect­ing elements
• ready for re-use after sim­ple clean­ing 90% stor­age gain in com­par­i­son to sto­plogs or sandbags
• ele­ments and tools for 30 or 60 cm bar­ri­er in one trans­porta­tion and stor­age case
• avail­able as HydroSwizz Emer­gency Flood Barrier