1 00:00:08,800 --> 00:00:12,929 There were some some definite concerns that either due to a major storm 2 00:00:12,929 --> 00:00:16,099 or a terrorist attack that subway tunnels are vulnerable to flooding. 3 00:00:16,099 --> 00:00:21,688 An issue with subway tunnels is that if you have a breach where a single tunnel starts to flood 4 00:00:21,688 --> 00:00:23,356 there's a lot of interconnectivity. 5 00:00:23,356 --> 00:00:25,984 So one tunnel is connected with other tunnels and stations. 6 00:00:25,984 --> 00:00:32,949 And so a seemingly isolated incident in one part of a subway system could actually flood a large part of the network. 7 00:00:32,949 --> 00:00:38,288 You know when this project was first initially thought about at DHS S&T, 8 00:00:38,288 --> 00:00:42,333 DHS S&T was a pretty young organization at that time and was reaching out 9 00:00:42,333 --> 00:00:47,547 to different organizations that they had access to, to help them with various projects. 10 00:00:47,547 --> 00:00:51,760 This was a completely kind of wild and crazy out of the box idea. 11 00:00:51,760 --> 00:00:55,430 We sat down and talked about possible solutions to the problem 12 00:00:55,430 --> 00:01:02,103 and came up with the idea that maybe an inflatable balloon or a plug could somehow be deployed in a tunnel 13 00:01:02,103 --> 00:01:07,400 and quickly deploy to contain flooding in a subway tunnel to a very small area 14 00:01:07,400 --> 00:01:13,031 and a lot of people thought that it was not a good idea that it would not work there was no way to make it work. 15 00:01:13,031 --> 00:01:17,869 Water pressing in on a tunnel full of rushing water, water is very heavy. 16 00:01:17,869 --> 00:01:20,622 And this tunnel plug is made of fabric. 17 00:01:20,622 --> 00:01:26,127 So we had to do some initial work just to figure out if the concepts were even possible. 18 00:01:26,127 --> 00:01:30,173 Systems engineering was a large part of what we brought to the table there. 19 00:01:30,173 --> 00:01:37,388 We laid out a plan that included doing a proof of concept, a simple proof of concept 20 00:01:37,388 --> 00:01:43,520 to as the first step to just kind of prove that we could install a lightweight plug 21 00:01:43,520 --> 00:01:46,815 in a reasonable period of time in a tunnel, 22 00:01:46,815 --> 00:01:52,570 deploy it and get a reasonable reaction in terms of sealing that tunnel off 23 00:01:52,570 --> 00:01:54,572 and we were successful. 24 00:01:54,572 --> 00:01:57,951 Well one of the complexities is just the subway itself. 25 00:01:57,951 --> 00:02:00,120 I mean a subway is a dirty environment. 26 00:02:00,120 --> 00:02:03,414 It's physically dirty, the tunnels are irregularly shaped. 27 00:02:03,414 --> 00:02:05,625 There are rails to be dealt with. 28 00:02:05,625 --> 00:02:08,253 There are conduits and pipes and wires. 29 00:02:08,253 --> 00:02:11,506 So there is a lot of operational hazards in a tunnel 30 00:02:11,506 --> 00:02:15,260 that make it very difficult to design something like this plug. 31 00:02:15,260 --> 00:02:18,179 So specifically one thing we had to worry about was shape, 32 00:02:18,179 --> 00:02:21,266 some of the others were just related to the engineering of the plug itself 33 00:02:21,266 --> 00:02:23,643 coming up with the materials that were strong enough 34 00:02:23,643 --> 00:02:28,148 to be implated to the necessary pressures to hold back the water. 35 00:02:28,148 --> 00:02:30,608 ILC also got involved in 2008. 36 00:02:30,608 --> 00:02:36,489 We were approached by DHS S&T and West Virginia University 37 00:02:36,489 --> 00:02:41,661 to bring our soft goods expertise to bear in solving the problem 38 00:02:41,661 --> 00:02:44,581 of creating a high strength inflatable structure. 39 00:02:44,581 --> 00:02:50,044 We looked for manufacturers, scientific organizations with the expertise 40 00:02:50,044 --> 00:02:55,300 to build a stronger more durable plug that would be successful in holding back floodwaters. 41 00:02:55,300 --> 00:02:58,761 And we identified ILC Dover here in Delaware 42 00:02:58,761 --> 00:03:01,639 that had done a lot of work for NASA designing spacesuits 43 00:03:01,639 --> 00:03:03,558 working with the Department of Defense 44 00:03:03,558 --> 00:03:08,688 and other agencies with high strength designed inflatable products. 45 00:03:09,439 --> 00:03:13,318 So recently we completed a series of tests to evaluate 46 00:03:13,318 --> 00:03:15,987 the performance of the plug and not just the plug 47 00:03:15,987 --> 00:03:21,618 but the plug, the storage container, the inflation pumps necessary to inflate the pump to full pressure 48 00:03:21,618 --> 00:03:25,413 and the control systems to make sure that the plug pressure is modulated properly. 49 00:03:25,413 --> 00:03:28,666 We successfully performed three separate tests 50 00:03:28,666 --> 00:03:31,920 which were a requirement for our primary transit agency customer 51 00:03:31,920 --> 00:03:35,673 and beyond that we did a fourth test which we called a long duration 52 00:03:35,673 --> 00:03:40,678 or 21 day test. This was also a critical requirement and that entailed 53 00:03:40,678 --> 00:03:44,807 inflating the plug and instead of bringing water in behind the plug 54 00:03:44,807 --> 00:03:47,518 and leaving it at pressure for one hour. 55 00:03:47,518 --> 00:03:50,355 We did a 21 day test with a plug in place 56 00:03:50,355 --> 00:03:54,817 fully inflated operational pressure with water pressurized behind the plug 57 00:03:54,817 --> 00:03:57,278 and the plug did nothing for 21 days. 58 00:03:57,278 --> 00:04:03,076 What we've done with the ability to pack these structures into such a small space 59 00:04:03,076 --> 00:04:08,081 is to mount them, store them right at the point of use. 60 00:04:08,081 --> 00:04:14,212 It brings so much resiliency to the system and reduces risk because 61 00:04:14,212 --> 00:04:15,797 nothing is going to get lost. 62 00:04:15,797 --> 00:04:19,467 They can keep the system open till the very last minute so there's safety 63 00:04:19,467 --> 00:04:21,261 in being able to use the system. 64 00:04:21,261 --> 00:04:26,891 And then the economic impact to the system is reduced because the transit system is open longer.