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SMART CONCRETE  |  SMART CONSTRUCTION  |  SMART STRUCTURES  |  INTELLIGENT INFRASTRUCTURE

Smart Structures is enabling the Integrated Construction Battlefield where advanced technology links materials, equipment and people to dramatically improve construction quality, productivity and safety.

   

Recent events have dramatically demonstrated the critical need to improve the effectiveness of quality testing and monitoring of the nation’s transportation infrastructure; the collapse of I-10 in Louisiana in 2005, and the failure of the Central Artery tunnel roof in Boston and the collapse of the Souvenir overpass in Montreal in 2006, and the collapse of the I35 bridge in Minnesota in 2007. 

These incidents disrupted traffic, restricted the ability to reach people with needed civil services, and even resulted in the loss of life.  Furthermore, recent collapses of bridges under construction in Tampa, Phoenix, China and Vietnam point to a critical need to improve the effectiveness of quality monitoring throughout the construction lifecycle.

While more comprehensive construction quality control is needed, it must be done in way that doesn’t unduly impact construction time and cost.  Therefore, simply doing “more” testing using current methods and technologies isn’t the solution because many of today’s approaches are either too costly, time consuming, disruptive to the construction process to be deployed on a comprehensive basis.

Because of these limitations quality control is performed on a sample basis, whereas in most industries such as automotive, semiconductors and consumer electronics, 100% of the components, subsystems and finished products are subjected to uniform quality monitoring and control.  SmartPile® was specifically designed and developed to be deployed in a comprehensive fashion, in every pile, cap, casting, shaft, column, beam, etc.  Today, several state DOTs, independent geotechnical engineering firms and large-scale construction contractors are using SmartPile® for quality testing and monitoring.
 
     

The SmartPile® System directly advances the unalterable reality that heavy construction in the future must/will emulate manufacturing business priorities: higher productivity; 6-sigma quality assurance, products made with extreme consistency within tight quality tolerances; lower unit costs; reduced labor (skilled and unskilled); and safe work environments with very low injury rates.

  • Quality control on every component, substructure and completed structure throughout the construction process.  Improved construction quality control accuracy and comprehensiveness will significantly reduce construction conflicts and claims.

  • Reduced cost of construction by reducing the cost of quality testing and inspection.

  • Quality testing and monitor of the complete structure including the deep foundation (below ground) where many of structural problems originate and/or occur.

  

  • Improved safety during construction by eliminating the current practice of having geotechnical engineers scaling structures under construction to attach external, wired sensors.

  • Potential to greatly reduce the cost of construction via lower factors of safety (higher resistance factors for Load and Resistance Factor Design) enabled by the accumulation of high-quality data across a number of construction programs.

  • Reduce or eliminate the need for inspectors to be at every jobsite in order to ensure quality.  The real time data can be viewed by an inspector or project engineer via a hand held computer or back at his desk on site, or back at the main office.