Making Civil Engineering Safer By Taking a Leaf Out of Mining’s Book: Part 2 – Dataloggers and Civil Wireless Monitoring

In Part 1  of this discussion, we spoke about the benefits of using multi-point borehole extensometers as a structural integrity monitoring tool in a civil engineering environment. Of course, installing MPBXs is of no benefit on its own. They need to be monitored and provide useful data to be of any real value and make a meaningful contribution to safety.

Once installed, data can be acquired from an array of MPBXs via two main methods: the use of portable devices, like our SMARTLog3 compact hand-held data logger, or by connecting all of the extensometers to a wireless network, like those powered by the comprehensive Loadsensing LS-G6 system, which automatically collects data and makes it easily available for interpretation and use.

Neither data-acquisition method is inherently better than the other; they are simply better suited to specific use cases and are often used side by side on the same site or project.

For completed or long-term major projects, it makes sense that most, if not all, structural monitoring data will be gathered from extensometers via a wireless network, but there are some instances in which it makes sense to acquire data by using hand-held data loggers, for example, where:

• Data-with high sampling rates is rapidly required from MPBXs that have recently been installed, and no civil wireless monitoring network has yet been set up in the area (these extensometers can be easily connected to the network once it is established).
• It does not make economic or practical sense, for various reasons, to set up a network, and it is decided that data gathered at regular intervals by a personnel member using a portable data logger is sufficient.

We believe that the use of extensometers for civil engineering projects and installations will become more commonplace in the next few years (especially for structural monitoring of subway and traffic tunnels), and that civil wireless monitoring networks that incorporate MPBXs will be proven to offer significant safety and other benefits to the civil industry in the same way as they have already done for miners.

Contact us now to find out more.