Ingeniería del Agua (Jan 2016)

Stability of people exposed to water flows

  • E. Martínez-Gomariz,
  • M. Gómez,
  • B. Russo

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4995/ia.2016.4231
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 20, no. 1
pp. 43 – 58

Abstract

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Our cities are formed by several elements which are exposed to floods of a magnitude according to the importance of the rainfall event and the design of the urban drainage system. The most important components in the cities are the pedestrians who develop various activities during rain events. Focusing on pedestrians, the research on their stability when they are exposed to water flows provides the necessary knowledge to understand and manage the associated hazard for them. In this research, several experiments with humans were carried out in order to determine the stability limits to pedestrians crossing through a water flow in a real scale platform. The results obtained and by comparing those with human stability criteria proposed by other authors and guidelines provide a more restrictive criterion.

Keywords