Spacesuit maker ILC Dover has teamed up with a New Jersey company to offer products that provide flood protection for buildings and equipment. A key material is DuPont Kevlar.
Smart Vent Products, of Pittman and ILC Dover, Frederica this week announced the line of products known as Flex-Wall.
Described as a low-cost, high-strength flexible Wall, the system can be deployed rapidly for flood protection of buildings and equipment. The system is constructed from high strength DuPont Kevlar with stainless steel hardware and can hold back up to 14-feet of rushing floodwater.
According to a release, Flex-Wall can be configured to surround buildings or to cover doorways, storefront windows, and garage entrances. All flood protection components are stored at the point-of-use.
ILC Dover has been working on flood- proofing, using its expertise in flexible materials that are used in aerospace and other areas. One demonstration showed the potential to seal off New York subway tunnels that were flooded during Hurricane Sandy.
According to the National Weather Service, between 2010 and 2014 flooding in the United States resulted in property damages and productivity loss of more than $24 billion.
“For more than 15 years, Smart Vent has been protecting buildings with its state-of-the-art Wet Floodproofing solutions, said Brad Walters, Vice President at ILC Dover. “This vast experience as well as its industry-leading Certified Floodplain Managers make Smart Vent the perfect partner for ILC Dover’s Flex-Wall Dry flood-proofing technology.”
Non-residential buildings located within high-risk FEMA-mapped flood zones are required to flood-proof their buildings, which usually means using bulky pieces of aluminum logs or panels that must be fit together in exact order to create a wall. In most cases, the items need to be stored off-site due to their size.
“This partnership allows Smart Vent Products to be the one stop shop for all Flood-proofing needs, whether a building designer is looking to incorporate wet or dry flood-proofing, or a combination of both. The innovative technology behind the Flex-Wall™ provides the security, performance, and ease-of-use that building owners are looking for when engineering to protect their asset,” says Tom Little, Vice President of Smart Vent Products, Inc.
Flex-Wall systems are currently being installed in New York City to protect a major electrical utility in the city. ILC Dover’s Flex-Wall is part of a family of flood mitigation products that protect subway entrances (Flex-Gate), tunnel entrances (Portal Flex-Gate™) and vent openings (Flex-Cover).
