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posted by martyb on Sunday June 25 2017, @08:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the how-does-the-train-get-out? dept.

Commuting is tough enough on a normal workday without the added hassle of a flooded tunnel on your way to or from work. With that in mind, how do subway systems around the world deal with this natural threat?

The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) has a solution in the form of a giant inflatable plug that will seal off subway tunnels and stop water from flowing throughout the subway system into stations and other subway lines.

"The tunnel plug is an innovative and groundbreaking technology that can protect subway tunnels from flooding," said John Fortune, Program Manager in S&T's Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (HSARPA).

Dubbed the Resilient Tunnel Plug (RTP), S&T, in conjunction with ILC Dover, the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), and West Virginia University, demonstrated the inflatable device at a recent event held in Frederica, Delaware. The uninflated plug integrates seamlessly into a subway tunnel without impeding the flow of normal train traffic, but can be quickly inflated to stop water from rushing through the tunnel and remain inflated to withstand the incredible pressure of restrained floodwaters.

The image of the plug in TFA looks like the plug uses a lot of duct tape.


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 25 2017, @11:04AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 25 2017, @11:04AM (#530840)

    NASA's Langley Research Center has a wind tunnel with a 16 foot inside diameter.
    At each of the test chamber, they put a thing that looks like a kid's wading pool or a life raft.
    There's a zippered flap/door in case somebody needs access to the rest of the tunnel.
    In the winter, these things help keep the cold air away from the guys doing setups, then they deflate them and pull them out to run the tests.

    ...and they'd probably been in use for decades before I was there.

    Now, you gotta figure that subways are going to be out of service at these high-flooding-potential times anyway, so a plug isn't going to interfere with any normal operations.
    Getting things back into service without having to pump out beneath-the-surface infrastructure is a big improvement.

    Glad these guys at Homeland Security finally figured out the temporary barrier thing.

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @03:35AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @03:35AM (#531087)

    s/At each of the test chamber/At each end of the test chamber

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]