CME.13 – Design of Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Civil Infrastructure Using Disaster Generated Wastes

• Mello Campos
• Kamil Czaplinski
• Jasper Gabriel
• Alex Jorgensen
• Tom Pikowski

The project, “Design of Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Civil Infrastructure Using Disaster Generated Wastes,” is research-based and explores using disaster-generated waste to create a sustainable and resilient civil infrastructure. With an increase in the frequency and severity of climate disasters due to global climate change, climate-resilient infrastructure will become pertinent to keeping communities safe without complete failure occurring first. It is also beneficial to sustainability to address the large amount of waste created by these storm events and reduce the rate at which they contribute to landfills. This project proposes the construction of a flood mitigation system made up of an earthen levee and a concrete flood-wall on McDonald Creek in the Village of Mount Prospect, Illinois, due to its proximity to the Des Plaines River — a river that often experiences flooding which affects the nearby residential housing.The construction of the levee and retention wall is similar to the construction procedure of a traditional flood wall and levee with a significant change being the incorporation of disaster-generated materials into the design. A fundamental step in this process is testing the disaster-generated materials in a lab using ASTM standards. Since the disaster-generated materials are to be directly implemented into the design of the concrete flood-wall and earthen levee, properties of density, strength, and permeability must be known. Utilizing the unique properties of the disaster-generated waste, a portion would substitute the cement and aggregate in the concrete mix while another portion was used as the material for a drainage ditch. The design was thoroughly analyzed for slope stability and seepage using GeoStudio. To find whether the design would have improved hydraulic effects on McDonald Creek, HEC-RAS was used to analyze the steady-state condition during 10-year and 100-year flood events.Alongside the revitalization of post-disaster debris, optimizing sustainability and cost are key to incentivizing this method over a conventional one. This ensures that affected residents will no longer need to purchase flood insurance. The research resulted in the proposed sustainable flood mitigation system is feasible and can withstand a 100-year flood event. The purpose of this research is to test and set preliminary standards for infrastructure using sustainable materials through the implementation of a flood mitigation system on a local scale. In future nationwide levee design projects, this design may provide an alternative to conventional levee design by providing a solution to local disaster management plans as well as another sustainable solution to climate disaster issues.