FR2804978A1 - Antipollution dam confining floating pollution on the surface of water to reduce diffusion and division - Google Patents

Abstract

The dam is formed of a continuous net in the form of a ribbon laid flat around the pollution, extended along its length by rods made of wood or other floating material. A similar net forms a skirt on one or both sides of the first net, with one side attached to the first net and the other ballasted. The assembly may be or may not be biodegradable. The floating net is doubled by an absorbent canvas in the case of a very fluid pollutant. The net is rolled on a drum adapted for a gantry, with an adjustable brake, suspended from a helicopter or fixed to a boat. The net is ballasted at its front end by balloons filled with water. The net is made of a material with a density less than one which floats. The dam is straight, fixed and contains pockets for retaining the pollutants. The net or canvas is held above the source of the pollution, either on the surface or immersed at a particular depth, by a system of ropes and pulleys, with a chimney in the center.

Description

The present invention relates to an anti-pollution barrier device more specifically intended to prevent the diffusion and fractionation, by confinement, of sheets of pollutants, for example hydrocarbons, floating on the surface of the water. The dams used to date , consisting of floats and suspended skirts are heavy, expensive, slow to set up, difficult especially when the surface of the water is animated by swell or waves or when there is a strong current. Especially in heavy seas, these dams, especially when they are intended to circumscribe a layer of pollution, have proved to be ineffective and even often impossible to set up by boats, however specially equipped.

The intervention of these boats on the scene or near sources of pollution also requires long delays during which the pollution spreads.

The device according to the invention overcomes these drawbacks.

It consists of a continuous net of small width, with more or less fine meshes, of a suitable length, wound on a rotary drum, which can be unwound horizontally on the periphery of the pollution layer, the drum is suitable for a gantry suspended from a helicopter like the water bombers used to fight forest fires, but also by a boat if there is no emergency.

In the peripheral zone of the sheet, this barrier-forming net can be deposited. outside the tablecloth or on the tablecloth to be circumscribed.

The principle consists in using the polluting, liquid, fluid, viscous or solid material as a float continuous barrier of the width of the net, and of the necessary length, net to which is possibly suspended a skirt for a blocking of the product which would migrate under this float . This net, in threads or ribbons, to be laid flat on the water or on the pollutant is fitted with floating elements. Its meshes have dimensions such that the polluting material does not pass through but clings to it to form a coherent, flexible, floating whole; they take into account the specific characteristics of the polluting material: density, viscosity, or dimensions of the constituent elements, granules for example.

In case of significant fluidity of the pollutant, the meshes of the net are lined with an absorbent veil, a sort of large blotter, on the complete or partial surface.

On the partial surface, the absorbent veil, in small multiple surfaces, is fixed to the mesh in such a way that the assembly offers the least wind resistance when it is put in place.

The meshes of the net being formed by warp threads or ribbons and perpendicular weft threads or ribbons do not tighten if the net is stretched lengthwise. Nevertheless, the floating elements, made of wood or formed of light hollow tubes, natural, like bamboo or other material, of length equal to the width of the net and arranged in the direction of the frame at regular spacings, serve to float the net on water or on the polluting product and to keep the longitudinal sides of the dam apart. The skirt is of the same nature as the net, hung on the edge of the net, along one side.

A second skirt can be installed on the other longitudinal side of the net.

The skirt has no floating elements and is weighted on its side opposite the side hung on the net.

The materials making up the net, the skirts, the buoyancy elements, ballast, absorbent veil, etc. can be biodegradable, so as not to become themselves polluting or harmful elements in the event of loss by complete immersion. The frame can in particular consist of natural products: reeds, straws, brandies for example.

In the event of a tablecloth of a small surface, the total surface of the tablecloth is covered with the net. also be, by suitable traction means, oriented, modified, formed, even directed and or treated on demand, The dam is in this case reinforced, over its entire length, during these operations, by one or more ropes provided with Eye-catching cleats.

The rapidity of intervention, the inexpensive cost of the dam thus formed also allow rapid repairs by superimposing nets in areas of possible ruptures, or to reinforce the dam, They also allow, in the event of a significant increase in the quantity of polluting products constituting a sheet at its source, doubling or tripling the dams by adapting their successive lines to the geometry of the magnifying sheet, To facilitate the start of the placement operation, bags or balloons filled with ballast water the net at its end and serve as floating anchors when they arrive in the water, The unwinding drum is equipped with a removable brake controlled from the helicopter or the boat making it possible to start the unwinding at the chosen time and to stretch 1st net at will, Its axis includes the hooking members to the gantry suspended from the helicopter or fixed to the boat, In case of setting lace by helicopter, the speed and ease of unhooking an empty drum and hooking a full drum is an element allowing very rapid interventions, The horizontal net without skirts, made of a material of density less than one, can be used without adding floating elements, I1 acts only by capturing the polluting product in its meshes. It constitutes a straight, fixed surface dam, by securing to buoys or fixed points, for example to shore, to prevent the passage of pollutants.

This net can also be used to form a convolution to confine the sheets.

Pleats along the length of the net, or the addition of strips of net by sewing, welding, gluing or knotting form pockets which hold onto floating products which are not meshed. A net or canvas, floating horizontally over a large area, can be used to maintain the cohesion of a sheet of polluting products, but also to receive and maintain submerged polluting products which rise to the surface if their density is less than that of water .

This floating net by nature of its components, is also stretched submersible. In this case, it is ballasted at the periphery or kept submerged at an adjustable depth using a set of cables, pulleys and bottom anchors. It thus collects pollutants closer to the source of submerged pollution, preventing their diffusion during their ascent to the surface.

Less stressed by the movements of the sea than on the surface, this net or canvas forming a horizontal barrier is more stable. Depending on its depth of immersion, it can be controlled at will, as well as the quantity of pollutants retained. Being able to be closed at its base like certain fishing nets, i1 is thus used to store the captured products and, if necessary, to transport them by tow or other appropriate mode.

To this horizontal covering, forming under the pressure of the polluting product a sort of dome, is added a central chimney in which the polluting product rises, by underlying pressure of the water. In this configuration, the object of the invention allows the recovery of the polluting product at the top of this chimney, at the level of the water surface, by pumping, but also by any other suitable mechanical means,

Claims (7)

1) Anti-pollution containment barrier device to prevent the spread and fractionation of the layers of pollutants floating on the surface of the water, characterized in that it consists of a continuous net, of small width, laid flat on the periphery of the tablecloth, 2) Device according to claim 1 characterized in that the net is in son or in ribbons, the warp of which is parallel to the long side, the perpendicular weft, and that it is stretched in the direction of its width by wooden rods or other material ensuring its buoyancy, the whole being or not biodegradable. 3) Device according to claims 1 and 2 characterized in that a skirt composed of an identical net is fixed to the floating net on one side and weighted on the other, 4) Device according to claims 1,2 and 3 characterized in that the horizontal net are fixed 2 skirts; one on each side. 5) Device according to claims 1,2,3 and 4 characterized in that the net is lined with an absorbent veil in the case of very fluid pollutant. 6) Device according to claims 1,2,3,4 and 5 characterized in that the net is wound on a drum adapted to a gantry, provided with a removable brake, suspended from a helicopter or fixed on a boat, 7) Device according to claims 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 characterized in that the net is ballasted at its start end by balloons filled with water. F) Arrangement according to claims 1,2,3,4, and 5 characterized in that the net is made of a material of density less than one and floats. 9) Device according to the preceding claims characterized in that it is straight, fixed and has pockets for retaining pollutants. 10) Device according to the preceding claims, characterized in that the large area net or canvas is maintained, stretched, above the site constituting the source of pollution, either on the surface or submerged at a determined depth, by a rope system and pulleys, and has in its center a chimney.