Skip to main content

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

  • Shell Bitumen’s new technology cuts air-polluting emissions by 40%
    May 15, 2019
    Shell Bitumen has developed molecular technology that cuts 40% of air-polluting emissions -Kristina Smith reports Shell Bitumen is launching a new technology which drastically reduces the amount of harmful air pollutants produced when asphalt mixes are manufactured and laid on the roads. Called Shell Bitumen FreshAir, it reduces six of the seven pollutants produced by at least 40%. The seventh, ozone, is produced in too small an amount to measure changes. “The World Health Organisation has said that 90%
  • Transtec launches Command Center 2.0 for concrete monitoring
    February 27, 2017
    Transtec Group has launched what it says is a powerful upgrade for concrete maturity and temperature monitoring. Command Center 2.0 (CC 2.0) includes updated desktop and mobile software, improved readers for data collection and a more durable, highly visible sensor cable.
  • Carry on Movin’ On - Michelin’s mobility event
    October 15, 2018
    Many of the great and the good in the global mobility sector gathered at this year’s Movin’ On event in Montreal. Measured regulation of technologies and safety issues were major themes, reports David Arminas Autonomous vehicles, platooning, smart intersections and safety – these were the talking points over two and half days of the Movin’ On event in Montreal. Everyone in the mobility sector is at the same point, trying to see what mobility will look like in the future. Apparent at the event was just
  • AGD launches larger zone AGD 645 pedestrian detector
    June 27, 2018
    AGD Systems has increased the zone of detection for its 645 pedestrian detector, the AGD 645. The 645 used to offer a 5m x 3m detection zone. Now, the optical kerbside detector covers a 10m x 3m zone in standard build format. This is to monitor the new super-crossings that are increasingly deployed internationally, said Ian Hind, AGD’s commercial director. “We are seeing this already in many locations worldwide, particularly at modal intersections such as bus and rail stations, as well as in busy city cen