Giatec promises Smart Concrete

Giatec’s Smart Concrete concept allows ready mix concrete suppliers to offer optimised mixes to their customers – and to charge more for them. Giatec, which makes concrete sensors and associated software and apps, works with the concrete producers to calibrate their mixes. The concrete company then supplies Giatec’s maturity monitoring sensors as part of the concrete package. “The ready mix suppliers get information straight away so that they can adjust their mixes if necessary,” says Giatec business
April 27, 2018 Read time: 2 mins
8775 Giatec’s Smart Concrete concept allows ready mix concrete suppliers to offer optimised mixes to their customers – and to charge more for them.

Giatec, which makes concrete sensors and associated software and apps, works with the concrete producers to calibrate their mixes. The concrete company then supplies Giatec’s maturity monitoring sensors as part of the concrete package.

“The ready mix suppliers get information straight away so that they can adjust their mixes if necessary,” says Giatec business development director Vic Perry. “It also means they can improve the efficiency of their products going forward.” So, for example, if a high early strength mix is gaining too much strength, too quickly, the producer could make adjustments and save some money.

The contractors can use data from the monitors to help inform decisions on site, such as when to strike shutters, which can lead to time and cost savings - as well as improved safety and quality. Giatec also sells its sensors and accompanying apps, known as SmartRock2, directly to contractors.

Data from the sensors can be collected via Bluetooth by holding a smartphone or tablet close to the area where the sensor’s small, square power and memory pack is located, a maximum of 5cm below the concrete surface. The system takes a temperature measurement – which can then be translated into strength – every 30 minutes and then stores it.

To date, Giatec has only rolled Smart Concrete out in North America, where it currently supplies it to 12 ready mix forms. In the future, it plans to offer the solution outside its home market too, says Perry.

Giatec reckons that there will be around 2,000 of its sensors operating around the world at any time. In the future, it hopes to use the huge amounts of data these generate. “We want to build algorithms from the data,” says Perry. “Although it’s early days. We have a lot of data, but not as much as we would like to have yet.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Automated testing is safer, cheaper and more thorough
    December 12, 2018
    Automated testing is improving safety during paving and saving on testing costs. But it could also help reduce long-term maintenance costs too - Kristina Smith writes Testing pavements as they are laid can be a hazardous activity. The technician may be on their hands and knees, far behind the main gang, or reaching inside the hopper to measure the temperature of the hot mix or dodging rollers to take density readings.
    Read More
  • CEMEX’s smart concrete technology move
    July 24, 2018
    CEMEX is developing its presence in the concrete technology segment with a strategic investment. The firm’s CEMEX Ventures division is buying a stake in the specialist Concrete Sensors, a US firm that carries out real-time monitoring of concrete. Concrete Sensors uses real-time data from sensors, allowing contractors to accelerate their schedules through accurate real-time monitoring of temperature, relative humidity, and strength with any mix design of concrete. The firm uses embedded wireless sensors, com
    Read More
  • Researchers trial 3D printing for both concrete and asphalt roads
    February 27, 2019
    Automated road repairs, using 3D printing, could save money and vastly reduce disruption, and researchers are already showing it’s possible - Kristina Smith reports It’s the middle of the night, and in the street below a team is busy carrying out repairs to the road surface. But there isn’t a human in sight. A road repair drone has landed at the site of a crack and a 3D asphalt printer is now busy filling in that crack. A group of traffic cone drones have positioned themselves around the repair location
    Read More
  • Trimble’s innovation with new technology
    January 11, 2019
    Trimble is developing highly advanced technologies for the construction and quarrying sectors – Mike Woof writes Trimble is working on a number of highly innovative technologies that could revolutionise the construction and aggregates production sectors. Perhaps the most eye-catching of all of these innovations is for the autonomous compactor and dozer system Trimble is in the process of developing at present. Scott Crozier is general manager of Trimble’s general construction division. He said that whi
    Read More

Highlighted Content