Queensland’s first locally designed and made portable flood barrier system will be developed from a winning design of a QUT industrial design student team chosen by Sydney-based company Flood Solutions Advisory Group (FSAG) for testing and production.
QUT senior lecturer Dr Marianella Chamorro-Koc said 49 third-year students in 13 teams presented ideas to FSAG for a temporary levy that could be used by Queensland communities in low-lying areas.
“Our students jumped at the chance to take part in this real-world exercise and designed and built design solutions considering the needs of all stakeholders: end users, community and industry,” Dr Chamorro-Koc said.
“Their brief was to design a flood barrier system that could be easily and quickly deployed to flood-prone areas, with high usability and maintenance values for the communities.
“It had to offer a competitive and cost-effective value proposition in comparison to other systems on the market, and be viable for local manufacturing using local materials.”
The winning team, Floodline, made up of Hyun Wook Cho, Narisson Irlen, Connor Crawford and Jack Gurr, came up with a lightweight, highly portable and simple design that will go into manufacture in Brisbane after further testing.
It took many all-night and all-day meetings to come up with their winning design.
“Our team first presented an idea each and then we looked at manufacturing techniques to see which was most viable. We went from cutting up a shoebox, to laser cutting cardboard and then acrylic before making our final design in aluminium,” Connor said.
“We did a lot of concept drawings because the challenge was to do it with one piece. I was thinking about Lego and how it clicks into place with one universal design,” Narisson said.
“We also went on some industry tours and workshops to get an idea of how it could be made and got help from our engineering tutors to calculate if our barrier would be strong enough and where the weak points were.”
FSAG director Keith Jackson said the company had commissioned the competition to find a better, simpler flood barrier to improve community protection in time of flood.
“We have supplied expensive imported temporary levies in the past, however it has always been our goal to bring a locally designed and manufactured alternative to market, given we already make 90 per cent of our other flood protection products in Australia
“We wanted a better system with fewer parts - easier to assemble once taken to deployment areas.
“It had to cost a lot less than imported temporary levees, be made locally from mainly local materials and importantly, create jobs for Queenslanders.
“QUT students’ ideas all met our design brief and the quality of thinking in their solutions was just superb.
“We chose the Floodline design because it met the key criteria of the design brief perfectly – simplicity, sustainability, cost efficiency, usability."
Mr Jackson said the winning design could be quickly brought in and installed in many situations. He gave the example of a typical town next to a river.
"An efficient portable flood protection system deployed only when required could be a viable alternative to a permanent levee – and be less costly for the community."
“The next step is to take the Floodline concept to production prototypes and put them into simulated flood conditions at our test facility in Sydney and then talk to Brisbane steel fabricators about getting the barrier into production,” he said.
“A lot of academic design projects are purely hypothetical – this QUT project is the opposite, it’s a real-world project that is highly likely to become an important part of the flood protection landscape in Australia.
“We intend to develop this flood barrier system into an Australian designed and Australian made product for the domestic and overseas flood protection markets.”
Media contact: Niki Widdowson, QUT Media, 07 3138 2999 or n.widdowson@qut.edu.au
After hours: Rose Trapnell, 0407 585 901, media@qut.edu.au
