Flood Protection and Flood Control

Yorkshire-based engineering company Defence Doors Ltd continued to design and develop new concept flood protection products to incorporate into flood and river defences. During the construction of a much-publicised Carlisle flood alleviation scheme Defence Doors Ltd was briefed with the design, manufacture and testing of prototype flood defence window system for use on both commercial and domestic properties.

The design brief was to produce a watertight flood defence window capable of retaining a static head of flood water and withstand a debris and flotsam impact load of 1000 kg travelling at 4 m/s.

This brand-new flood defence product was designed to replicate and replace the existing timber windows on the exposed lower-level of the buildings elevation, as the structure is a listed building great attention to the windows dimensional appearance including opening lights insured the final product was passed off by building control

These flood windows are manufactured exclusively from non-ferrous material, powder coat finish with stainless steel fixings. The glazing panels are constructed from laminated safety glass, assembled as double glazed sealed units finished with internal laminated safety" K" glass ensuring the completed unit complies with current building regulations

The finished design of a flood defence window and operation of the opening light is identical to standard windows and using heavy duty Cockspur handles and stainless steel opening stays allows both side and top hung options

Floodgates and watertight hatches

As the new flood defence walls wind around Carlisle city openings in the wall allow vehicle and pedestrian access, these are closed off during flood alerts by hinged steel floodgates manually operated by the Environment Agency These steel floodgates assemblies range from 0.8 meter wide structures up to a substantial 6.7 meter single leaf floodgate on the main car park entrance. Weighing in at almost 1.7 ton this gate assembly is still easily operable by a single man using an operating spanner and taking only a few seconds to fully close and lock All of the gates on the Carlisle scheme have been designed and built for telemetry monitoring allowing the Environment Agency to determine if the gates are both closed and locked from a remote location.