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PROTEST › Hardware

Hardware for continuous in-situ monitoring

Sensors cast into the concrete, a multi-channel transmitter at the pour, a gateway carrying the site’s connection, and the PROTEST cloud. Once installed, no part of the chain has to be visited to retrieve a reading.

The four components

Only the sensors are cast into the concrete. Once the four components are installed, none of them requires a site visit, a physical connection or a manual download to produce a reading.

1 · Cast in

Sensors

Cast into the concrete at the positions set by the thermal control plan — typically core and surface zone, paired at several locations in the section.

2 · At the pour

Transmitter

Multi-channel. Reads the sensors wired to it and transmits by long-range radio, so cabling is confined to the pour itself.

3 · Site-wide

Gateway

Receives from every transmitter in range, buffers the readings locally, and carries the site’s internet connection.

4 · Off site

PROTEST cloud

Converts the readings to maturity, in-situ strength and core-to-surface differential, evaluated against the limits set for the pour.

Measurement density sets what you can see

A differential is a comparison between two positions, so the useful output of a monitoring system is limited by the number of positions it is economic to instrument. A single point gives a temperature. Core and surface-zone pairs at several positions in the section give the differential the thermal control plan is written against, including at the face losing heat fastest — which is not necessarily the most accessible one.

PROTEST uses commodity digital sensors so that this density is affordable. They are treated as consumable: they remain in the concrete, nothing has to be recovered from the pour, and a sensor lost to a poker vibrator is written off rather than worked around.

  • Cable length does not affect the reading. Conversion to a digital value happens at the probe, so there is no analogue signal to degrade: a thirty-metre run out of a deck returns the same value as a short one.
  • A damaged cable loses one position, not the set. Sensors are individually cabled rather than chained, so damage to one lead leaves the remaining positions reading normally.
  • Sensors are interchangeable. Any two read the same under the same conditions, so a replacement is a direct swap — no configuration, and no correction factor to apply afterwards.

Collection is continuous and unattended

The transmitter sits at the pour and reads the sensors wired to it. It is multi-channel, so one unit covers a set of positions rather than one unit per probe, and it transmits by long-range radio. The only cabling on site is the run from the concrete to the transmitter.

The gateway receives from every transmitter within range, holds the readings locally, and carries the internet connection — one backhaul for the site rather than one per pour.

The record is therefore continuous and requires no intervention to maintain: no handheld reader, no physical download, and no gaps in the data where a manual collection was missed.

Peak temperature in a thick section commonly occurs overnight, and the core-to-surface differential can move fastest in the hours immediately after striking. Continuous collection captures both directly and can raise an alert at the time, rather than leaving them to be inferred from the readings either side.

One record, held off the site

Readings arrive without intervention and are converted into the values decisions are taken on: in-situ strength from a maturity function calibrated to the cement in the mix, core-to-surface differential against the limits set for the pour, and peak temperature against the specification.

Because the record is held in the cloud rather than on one machine on site, the site team, the temporary works engineer and the client see the same figures at the same time. A striking decision can be taken against the data as it stands, without waiting for a report to be compiled and circulated.

Full specifications and datasheets are in preparation and will be published on this page.

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