Mantracourt Technology Enables Remote Load Monitoring

British company Groundforce, a division of Vp plc, provides shoring, formwork and piling equipment and services to the construction industry. By incorporating Mantracourt’s wireless telemetry technology into pre-calibrated load pins, Groundforce now offer its clients an accurate means of remotely measuring the actual loads in heavy duty hydraulic struts used in construction pits, thereby providing their customers a cost effective early warning measurement service.
“Being able to use wireless telemetry technology for strain and load measurement is enabling many new applications“ said Kelly Voysey of Mantracourt. “It’s proving ideal for applications within the construction and civil engineering industries, where access and cabling is limited or indeed, impossible.”
The T24-SA strain acquisition module provides high performance wireless measurement of strain gauge, pressure, load cell, linear displacement and other 4 wire bridge sensors. Providing direct mV/V input and 5V bridge excitation for up to 4 load cells. The miniature size allows for the option of embedding within the sensor housing and its low power modes provides ‘power down’ between transmissions or remote controlled power ‘on’ and ‘off’ giving exceptionally long battery life.

Data from the load pins within the struts can either be collected using a wireless hand held display onsite with range up to 200 metres or by using Mantracourt’s GPRS sampling device; a unit that automatically gathers on-site data from sensors at pre-set intervals and transfers this via the GPRS network to emails, mobile phones or remote servers. This provides users world wide access to data recording and monitoring.

“The Mantracourt system is proving to be a valuable addition to our product range, offering a progressive means of information gathering for construction companies,” said Tony Gould, Technical Director of Groundforce.

“We’ve found the Mantracourt equipment to be very robust and effective and the engineering team behind it very helpful and supportive.”

The Groundforce system has been deployed at sites for the Olympic Games for London 2012 and the high profile Tyne Tunnel 2 Crossing project in Newcastle. It has also found its way as far a field as sites in Stockholm, Sweden and Trondheim in Norway.