When the floods devastated Kashmir in 2014, a group of six students at the SSM College of Engineering planned to do something innovative to help people in flood prone areas in the future. They came up with an idea of making flood-proof structures and adopted it for their final year project.
It took myself, Babar Ashraf, Aqib, Farheen, Haya and Abida, all in their early twenties, almost one year to complete the project. Since we had to submit project that would mark the successful completion of our degree we had to rush with it. Since we were still coping with the disastrous effects of flood, we wanted to use our skills and do something useful in this regard. But it was a big risk because this innovation needed ample time and we had only six months. If we would have failed to complete it within that duration, we could have lost a whole year. We took the risk and it was worth it.
Working:
The structure consists of two parts: a hollow steel tank, which is the substructure, and the small steel shed which rests on the former. The shed, which is made up of steel, is fixed with the ground with the telescopic sleeve pillars, at each corner, with the adjustable height, so when the inundation results in the raise of water level, Archimedes Principle comes into play – the hollow steel tank rises and the telescopic sleeves protract, thereby resulting in the elevation of the entire structure. Telescopic sleeves restrict the lateral motion of the structure, or in other words, the structure when floating on the surface of the water, cannot move from side to side. Therefore, the structure has the lone freedom of moving vertically, making it the ideal flood resistant structure.
Relevance:
Since flood has become a permanent feature in Kashmir so we had to come up with a permanent solution for it. As we know that after every 2-3 Days of rainfall in Kashmir a flood alert is sounded sparking anxiety and fear in population.
If we apply our project on ground we can save life and property on a large scale, especially in flood prone areas. Apart from this our project can create a large scale employment opportunities in Kashmir which is need of the hour.
