• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.32 no.8
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• pp.1221-1230
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• 2008

Inflatable rubber dams are used for controlling flood, impounding water for recreations, preventing beach erosions, diverting water for irrigations, and generating hydropower. They are long, flexible, inflated with air, cylindrical structures on a rigid horizontal foundation such as concrete. The dam is modeled as an elastic shell inflated with air. The mechanical behaviors of the inflated dam model were investigated by using the finite element method. The analysis process such as One Way Coupling Fluid-Structure Interaction consists of two steps. First, the influences of the fluid side were investigated, viz, the shape changes of the inflated rubber dam due to the fluid motions was captured when the height of the dam was 30cm with air pressure 0.01MPa, at which the pressure distributions over the surface of the dam were calculated. And next, the structural deformations were calculated using the pressure distributions. The initial inlet velocity for flow field was set to 0.1m/s. The structural deformation behaviors were investigated. The final research goal is to develop a Korean Inflatable Rubber Dam to be used for generating small hydropower.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.319-324
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• 2018

Due to climate change, water shortages and water-related disasters will be serious. Since the damage and frequency of drought are increasing, the importance of water resource management technology is increasing. In this study, we analyzed the amount of greenhouse gas and the environmental impact caused by the production and operation system technologies of movable weir among various water resource management technologies. The research subjects were air inflatable rubber dams widely used in rivers and upright type rubber dams, which are an improvement on the existing rubber type. Each type of dam was studied at sizes of $1,500H{\times}10,000L\;mm$ and $3,000H{\times}20,000L\;mm$, and the two types and two sizes were compared and analyzed. Using life cycle assessment, we examined the environmental impacts using the amount of electricity required for operation and the discretionary amount required for production. In the '$1,500H{\times}10,000L$' dams, the global warming indexes were $9.35E+04kg\;CO_2-eq$. for upright type and $7.36E+04kg\;CO_2-eq$. for inflatable type. At size of '$3,000H{\times}20,000L$' the global warming indexes were $9.09E+05kg\;CO_2-eq$. for upright type and $1.07E+06kg\;CO_2-eq$. for inflatable type. Analysis of the life cycle environmental impact showed that the environmental impact of the air inflatable rubber dam was reduced by 39.8% at '$1,500H{\times}10,000L$' compared to the larger size. At the larger '$3,000H{\times}20,000L$' size, the upright dam showed a 10.1% smaller impact than the air inflatable rubber dam. Selection of water resource management system should consider climate change, not only management purpose and cost. Additional studies and improvements on rubber dam systems should be made.