CONTINUOUS SAND FILLED TUBES FOR TEMPORARY FLOOD FIGHTING BARRIER

BETTER PROTECTION QUICKER RESPONSE

White Paper

Conveyor Application Systems

Conveyor Application Systems 1275 Bailey Hill Road Eugene OR 97402 541-335-8040 www.slingers.com

G. BRENT WHITLEY JANUARY 10, 2010

INTRODUCTION Sand bags are still widely used for constructing temporary barriers for flood fighting. The primary weaknesses of traditional sand bag structures are: 1. They are very labor intensive 2. They are time consuming during an event when speed is paramount. 3. Filling and installing these barriers is dependent mostly on untrained volunteers with strong backs 4. Incorrectly installed stacks of sand bags can fail 5. Unsecured bags near the top can be dislodged by wave action and debris.

THE SANDTUBE FROM CONVEYOR APPLICATION SYSTEMS

THE ISSUE Flood fighting communities need better methods of protecting property from flood waters. These methods must be expedient, effective, and cost efficient. Communities often have only a few days warning and effective barriers must be completed quickly, across all types of terrain, and in adverse weather conditions. Failure to get barriers up in time and failures of the barriers themselves allow flood waters to cause tremendous property damage and financial hardship.
$10,000 $9,000 $8,000 $7,000 $6,000 $5,000 $4,000 $3,000 $2,000 $1,000 $0 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 National Flood Data (Damage in Millions of Current US $)
Data provided by http://www.flooddamagedata.org/national.html

PROPOSED SOLUTION Conveyor Application Systems has created a new system by which long tubes can be filled with sand creating a continuous barrier. The tubes are filled on site using a single piece of equipment at rates equivalent to 120 sand bags per minute. These tubes have complete contact with the ground and require no advance ground preparation.

Equivalent to 120 sand bags per minute.

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Several new inventions have been developed in recent years which attempt to address protecting property from flood damage. Some of these attempts are creative and elaborate. Others are simply methods to fill traditional sand bags more quickly or easily. Out of the vast number of ideas that have come forth, only a handful are effective and for the most part, the most effective methods are the most costly.

Multiple tubes can be stacked to form barriers of different heights. The following are approximations.
1 ft.

2 ft.

3 ft.

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MATERIALS Quick Facts About The Sand Tube: # Description .05 Cubic yards of sand needed per linear foot of 16 tube 60.00 Rate of application in cubic yards per hour 51.71 Cubic yards of sand needed to fill one 16 tube 1,000 feet long 310.28 Cubic yards of sand needed to fill 6 tubes 1,000 feet long 19.34 Linear feet per minute to fill one 16 tube 5.17 Hrs needed to install 6 sand tubes 1,000 feet (approx. 3 foot high barrier) THE PROCESS The process uses a loader and the CAS Off-Road Environmental Series Track machine. The tube fabric is attached to the filling device and the machine begins laying the tube in one continuous length. Multiple runs are made laying a base tube and stacking more in a pyramid shape to whatever height is required. This process requires one equipment operator for the track machine, a loader operator, and a couple of helpers to load the cartridges and stage them for the machine. The CAS Off-Road Environmental Series Track machine is built to have very low ground pressure allowing it to work in environmentally sensitive areas where damage and compaction are of concern. With the rubber tracks and off road design, it can access difficult locations and place the CAS Sand Tubes where they are needed. The entire barrier is built quickly and in place.

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COST OF MATERIALS The CAS Sand Tube is a continuous circular woven polypropylene tube filled with sand. Because it is filled completely, is continuous, and has few folded ends, it uses only a fraction of the material used in traditional sand bags. Thus the cost of the product itself, excluding the fill material, is much less than nearly any other tested product.

COMPARISONS WITH ALTERNATIVE METHODS

$152 160 140 120 100 80 60 $26 40 20 0 Cost Per Foot of Product $30 $6 $71 Portadam Hesco Bastion

Sandbags
RDFW CAS Sandtubes

COST OF INSTALLATION Installation of Hesco Bastion, Portadam, and RDFW barriers requires significantly less hours than do sand bag barriers but significantly more than the CAS Sand Tube barrier. It is difficult to compare hours required to install sand bag barriers since these hours are considered all volunteer and are not tracked. The significance of the time requirements however is not primarily based on economics in a flood crisis. Rather it is the overall speed of getting the barrier in place ahead of the flood. Thus speed of installation is most important. The following graph shows the number of labor hours required to install various barriers. Though the labor hours used to install sand bag barriers are represented in the graph below as 0 for purposes of comparison, these barriers in reality are the most time consuming and thus least preferable in a crisis. In addition, many other costs have not

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been taken into consideration here for the sand bag barriers but are worth noting. Bathrooms, water, and tools must be supplied for the many volunteers. Injuries are common and must be treated. The sand used in the sand bags is double or triple handled before it gets to where it is to be used and more equipment is required during the whole process of building sand bag barriers.

120 100 80 60 40 20 0 Portadam Hesco Bastian Sandbags RDFW CAS

Costs: Food Water Bathrooms Equipment, Fuel Double Handling Labor Hours Operator Hours

Installation Hours for 1,000 Linear Feet

The material used to create the sand tube barrier is the same material used in conventional sand bags so has the same containment, endurance, and strength as do sand bags. Additional strength is added since the tubes are made in one piece rather than multiple small units that can be dislodged by waves or floating debris. Less seepage occurs in a sand tube barrier than in a sand bag structure because the only seams that exist are horizontal between tubes that have hundreds of pounds of sand bearing down on them as opposed to the many seams of individual sand bags which have only an average of 50 pounds holding them in place. Compare figure 3.1 to 3.2; a fair contrast of the different methods of flood protection.

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Sand Tubes

Figure 3.1

Figure 3.2

As seen in the above images, the sand tube method provides an extremely resistant flood barrier due to its minimal seams, when compared with traditional sand bagging methods. Repair Because the sand tubes are heavy, approximately 150 pounds per linear foot, they are very difficult to dislodge and because they are constructed of the same fabric as sand bags, they hold up well to impacts from floating debris. On the occasions where a sand tube barrier requires repair, another tube can be laid in place, a preformed segment can be placed with a loader, or regular sand bags can be placed over the damaged area.

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Removal Removal is much the same as removing sand bags except that in some cases, the material can be removed from the sand and disposed of Fabric Used in 1,000' Long 3' Tall separately. Barrier In cases where the fabric is not to be removed first, loaders simply scoop up segments of 800000 the sand tube which are either 600000 precut in length or can be cut by a laborer as it is removed. 400000 Square Feet of Either way, much less fabric is Material Used 200000 used in sand tube barriers than 0 in sand bags and thus much Fabric Used in Fabric Used in less material ends up in Sand Bag Sand Tube landfills. In cases where the sand is separated from the fabric upon removal, the sand can be reused or *assuming a standard sand bag of disposed of separately. 26x14, and a 16 diameter sand tube As evidenced by the above chart, the fabric needed for sand bags is overwhelmingly more than when compared with the sand tube (606,667 square feet vs. 26,000 square feet). In fact, the sand tube only requires approximately 4.29% of the total fabric that a standard sand bag wall requires.
120 100

80
60 40 20 0 Labor Hrs Operator Hrs

Portadam

Hesco Bastian

Sand Bags

RDFW

CAS Sand Tube

Removal Hours

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Cost Savings The cost savings of installing sand tube barriers over most other methods are significant. Even when calculating the cost of a sand bag barrier using free volunteer labor, the sand tube barrier is less expensive to install and remove. Below is a chart that reproduces the vendor furnished costs for various 1,000 feet of 3 feet high flood fighting products constructed in Vicksburg MS. This information is taken from the US Army Corps of Engineers, from the Engineer Research and Development Center. The last column compares the CAS sand tube barrier with the same items as in this report.

Total Cost
$160,000 $140,000 $120,000 $100,000 $80,000 $60,000 $40,000 $20,000 Total Cost

$0
Portadam

The one thing that is not included in the sand tube barrier data is the cost of the track machine. The reason is that it is unclear whether it is preferable for this equipment to be owned publicly or by contractors in the private sector who lease out their services. Regardless of ownership, these machines must be available for immediate deployment when a flood event is eminent. Using the statistics given in the above report, a break even analysis shows that the purchase price of the CAS track machine can be recouped by the savings realized in 15,000 linear feet of a 3 foot high sand tube barrier over conventional sand bag barriers. This break even amount is even less when compared with most other systems. Cost illustration using 2004 data from USACE

Machine can be completely paid for by savings in only 15,000 feet.

1 0

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Hesco Bastian

Sand Bags

RDFW

CAS Sand Tube

Summary of benefits The CAS sand tube is fast, simple, effective, and economical. A few of the benefits are as follows. Speed of application paramount in a flood event. The more barrier that can be installed before the flood waters rise, the more property that can be protected. Cost savings the cost of installing the tubes are less expensive than almost any other system including sand bags where the massive labor needed is free. Less fabric disposed into landfills after the flood, disposal is an issue. The CAS sand tube uses a small fraction of the fabric as do sand bags and often, it can be removed entirely. Less people to direct it is difficult to organize and optimize volunteers. Using the CAS sand tubes in many areas frees up these volunteers to work in other areas. More secure and effective complete ground contact and fewer seams make the CAS sand tubes into a solid and tight barrier. Variable heights and lengths simply adding more sand tubes makes a wider base and taller barrier. Simple repairs whether using regular sand bags or sections of sand tube, repairs are made with supplies already available.

Other Sand Tube Applications Sand tubes can be installed for other purposes such as sealing leaks in dikes, hazardous spill containment, and concentrated flow erosion check dams. When minor containment is necessary to provide protection against very shallow flood waters or other potentially hazardous liquid materials, a single sand tube can be laid down. See Figure 4.1 below Figure 4.1 THE SANDTUBE FROM CONVEYOR APPLICATION SYSTEMS

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Figure 4.2 demonstrates a single sand tube arc around a susceptible area

Contact Information Conveyor Application Systems, LLC 1275 Bailey Hill Road Eugene, OR 97402 www.cassandtube.com
Conveyor Applications Systems is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Rexius Corporation, established in 1945.

G. Brent Whitley General Manager of Conveyor Application Systems, LLC (541) 335-8040 brentw@rexius.com

***All images are work of a Federal Emergency Management Agency employee, taken or made during the course of an employee's official duties. As works of the U.S. federal government, all FEMA images are in the public domain.

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