Failure on demand of flood defence scheme components

This project collected and analysed data about structural elements, such as culverts, gates, flaps and pumps, and the effects of them failing.

Documents

Failure on demand of flood defence scheme components - technical report (1 MB) PDF

Failure on demand of flood defence scheme components - summary (289 KB) PDF

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Details

This project gathered data about how often and why elements of flood defence systems, such as gates, culverts, flaps and pumps fail, and the effects of these failures. The data was analysed to produce estimates about failures and their effects. The project also looks at how important particular elements are and how they relate to flood defences and flood warnings.

The failure estimates produced from the database were calculated by averaging across the entries relevant to a chosen system or component. They’re higher than might be expected because they currently do not account for similar components that are in operation that have not failed. Corrections for this will be undertaken in the next phase of work.

Outcome

As well as capturing numerical data for calculating failure rates, this project collected other general knowledge about the causes and potential severity of failures. This information will help to develop future best practice.

The project started in 2001 and was completed in 2003.

Published 15 February 2021