Description
Floods are listed as the most common and widespread of all natural disasters. Around 40 million hectares of land in India are prone to floods according to the recent National Flood Commission report. Floods often contain sudden and rapid moving water which causes damage to houses, industries, public utilities and has wiped out entire residential areas in the past. This results in huge economic losses, apart from the loss of lives. Society moves to learn and respond better to such calamities by better design, better disaster management or better disaster management resources.
The flood in recent Jammu n Kashmir saw use of solid rafts by army which where 190 Kgs in weight. This is too heavy for less than 6 people to carry and place in water or move between unconnected water bodies or across obstructions. The positive side was these rafts were practically very strong and not prone to damage.
The usual raft used by disaster management authorities is inflatable rafts. This has the advantage of being carried easily. It has the disadvantage of being punctured easily in waters which are not cleared like a navigable lane of water. Most of the flood environment is such waters, where numerous obstructions lie just under the water surface and can damage the inflated raft easily.
Raft design
The raft design achieves the following objectives:
a. Made of ten solid sections (cuboid) of solid composite lightweight material.
These cuboids are long with a small width and height. Each section (each
cuboid) does not weigh more than 15 Kgs.
b. The raft is made by laying parallel these sections and securing by two cross
members.
c. The cross members of same material.
d. These sections have grooves to fit into each other without chance or wrong
fitting.
e. The sections are held in place by large wing-nuts, not small and prone to slip
through the hands and fall in the water when assembling in flood like
conditions.
f. Overall shape is streamlined.
g. It is capable of being dropped in unassembled condition in a bag from a
helicopter from a height of 20 feet without damage.
h. It has emergency light and laminated instruction card with raft assembling
instructions, i. It has two oars and a provision to fit an outboard engine, j. The foam structure has the ability to withstand collision with floating debris
if any. k. The arrow marks denote the position of the bolts. 1. The box containing the accessories has a provision to mount an outboard
engine.
Other advantages of this design include
The usage of materials such as plastic foam reduces the weight of the design significantly.
Fluorescent colours are used along with reflecting tapes in the design to ensure that the raft can be located from a distance.
Provision to mount torch as an emergency light. The emergency light will provide a better vision of the surrounding and also as a signal to rescue teams in identification and location.
The streamlined profile of the raft bottom ensures that the raft has the capability to withstand a collision of any kind
Dimensions
The raft length is 9 feet and width is 6 feet. While normal ratio of a vessel is 1: 5 width to length, this is a very slow speed craft and hence wider for stability purposes.
The draft of the raft is 12 inches, being the underwater portion of the cross members located at the lowest level and secured by wing nuts.
Alpha Solid Raft Disaster Management Rafts to be used in Flood Relief Work
Claim : I / We claim patent to a design of flood relief/ emergency raft made a set of pre-fabricated components which is assembled on site whose full details are as described below. The claim is for this specific design, which is not possible to be punctured, and can be assembled by two persons on site, in flood like environment.