Sarah McGuire

Sarah McGuire

Senior Director SmartRock Plus Division at Giatec | Smart Concrete Testing Technologies. Passionate about concrete and bringing Giatec's revolutionary technology to the industry for all to benefit from. Giatec Scientific Inc., is revolutionizing the construction industry by bringing smart concrete testing technologies and real-time data collection to the forefront of every jobsite. We are bringing long-overdue change to a conservative industry by addressing the current challenges in concrete testing, analysis, design, and production.

Bullet-Proof Concrete Proposed for Border Wall

With President Trump’s border wall plans heavily in the works, a North Carolina company is ready to get their hands dirty. Partnering with a construction company in Texas, a bid application to build a concrete wall using a patented ballistics concrete that has the capability to absorb bullets and dangerous scraps from explosions has been put forth. SmartRock® is #1 and we can prove it! Experience the world’s #1 concrete sensor. Get a Prove-It Kit As stated by Clayton Amidon, officer of Amidon, Inc. – the manufacturers of this bullet-resistant concrete, it may look and feel like regular concrete, but unlike its counterparts, it carries with it unique absorption qualities.To date and not surprisingly, this particular concrete mainly attracted clients from the Government of Defense, the United States Marine Corps, the Air Force, the Army and so forth. For example,…

Fire Deteriorates Atlanta’s I-85 Concrete Bridge

A raging fire, now suspected to be the result of an act or arson, led to the most used bridge in Atlanta collapsing on Thursday, March 31, 2017. The fire erupted in a storage area beneath the I-85 Bridge where a variety of construction equipment was being held. The ensuing collapsed bridge then severed a highway that carries up to 250,000 vehicles in a single day. The damage that ensued from the flames acts as a reminder of just how damaging intense heat can be to structures made of concrete and steel! SmartRock® is #1 and we can prove it! Experience the world’s #1 concrete sensor. Get a Prove-It Kit According to Andy Herrmann who had in the past served as the president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, this damage to the concrete and steel greatly affects the…

The Importance of Sequencing for Precast Concrete

Naturally, precasters spend a large amount of their time working to understand the chosen materials that go into their concrete mix designs. But how important is the order to which they choose to introduce these various components into the mix? Also known as sequencing, the order that they choose is critical. When sequencing is done properly, it can ensure that the admixtures are working as needed, can save wear and tear on the mixtures, help to avoid issues such as inhomogeneous mixing or balling and finally ensure the desired final properties for their products are attained. Below is a brief summary of NCPA’s Sequencing in Mix Design article. SmartRock® is #1 and we can prove it! Experience the world’s #1 concrete sensor. Get a Prove-It Kit The first and foremost factor that affects sequencing is the type of mixer that…

Sydney Metro Job Structural Failure Leads to Delays

Australia is currently working on a large-scale infrastructure project known as the Sydney Metre Job. Unfortunately, a key component of Australia’s biggest public transport infrastructure project has recently been the subject to a critical technical report that describes an elevated viaduct span fail located at a stitch joint between two precast segments. The fail took place in September of last year and has led to serious setbacks for the job. SmartRock® is #1 and we can prove it! Experience the world’s #1 concrete sensor. Get a Prove-It Kit The affected section, also known as the Skytrain section, is one of the 115 spans under construction using this precast segmental span-by-span method. The method calls for erecting a series of precast box girder segments that are supported by an overhead gantry, which are then stressed longitudinally.It was last November when engineering…

The Sinking Millennial Tower – AKA the Modern-Day Leaning Tower

In early November of 2016, news broke that one of the United States’ most luxurious residential towers are sinking and tilting – which has led to residents filing lawsuits against the city of San Francisco. SmartRock® is #1 and we can prove it! Experience the world’s #1 concrete sensor. Get a Prove-It Kit According to testimony heard at City Hall on Thursday, February 2, 2017, the developers behind the sinking Millennium Tower had paid for an independent review of the tower itself prior to construction, however not for the site itself. The Millennium Partners and its engineering consultants hired Jack Moehle, a professor of structural engineering at UC Berkeley, to conduct the independent peer-review of the building design and as such, the Government Audit and Oversight committee had a few questions for him.During Thursday’s hearing, Moehle explained that he inspected…

Replacing the I-75 Rouge River Bridge Concrete 2017

The largest concrete surface in Michigan is the I-75 Rouge River Bridge, and as it is now scheduled to be replaced, Metro Detroit is looking at one of the biggest freeway closures to have taken place in recent years. The closure, which will stretch between Detroit and Downriver, is scheduled to start on February 4th, 2017 and will last approximately two years. Projected to cost about $200 million, the project will include removing and replacing all of the concrete on the bridge! SmartRock® is #1 and we can prove it! Experience the world’s #1 concrete sensor. Get a Prove-It Kit As per the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), the project further entails removing the Goddard Street Bridge and replacing it with two smaller bridges, repairing 13 other bridges located along the I-75 through the Downriver communities, and adding intelligent transportation…

Cement + Water + Wood = Concrete?!

The current outbreak the mountain pine beetle and its microbial associates, native to the forests of western North America from Mexico to central British Columbia has destroyed wide areas of lodgepole pine forest, including more than 16 million of the 55 million hectares of forest in British Columbia. In light of this outbreak, British Columbia has been faced with a tough question: what do we do with the billions of trees being killed by the mountain pine beetle? SmartRock® is #1 and we can prove it! Experience the world’s #1 concrete sensor. Get a Prove-It Kit Well, Pasca and Professors Ron Thring and Ian Hartley may have found the solution! They have discovered that mountain pine beetle (MPB) wood is actually an effective ingredient for producing concrete! Usually, aggregates consist of stones or rocks, but MPB wood is now becoming…

Simplify Your Concrete Mixes with this All-in-One Additive

With concrete being one of the most popular construction materials used by engineers and professionals worldwide, it is easy to assume that this widespread material, so seemingly pedestrian, must be straightforward and singular, with no hidden secrets. However, the reality of the matter is that making it requires managing complex parameters that can differ from one batch to the next. That is to say, the desired consistency of cement varies from company to company and project to project, and so producers must tweak their cement additives in order to meet their particular needs. SmartRock® is #1 and we can prove it! Experience the world’s #1 concrete sensor. Get a Prove-It Kit Until now, concrete has been typically enhanced with varying amounts of different additives, and so as one could imagine, the process can become tedious, time-consuming and costly until the…

Laser Scanning: New Fire Damage Detection in Concrete

Though concrete is known to be a material which has high fire-resistance, its physical, chemical and mechanical properties do endure severe changes when subjected to high temperatures – particularly with temperatures over 300 degrees Celsius. Fire is actually one of the most serious potential risks to concrete structures such as bridges, buildings and tunnels. As such, a structural safety assessment is required in order to evaluate bearing capacity and durability in fire-damaged concrete structures. SmartRock® is #1 and we can prove it! Experience the world’s #1 concrete sensor. Get a Prove-It Kit There are a number of conventional on-site and off-site techniques that are currently available for the assessment of fire-damaged concrete. However, all methods have their advantages and disadvantages. Wallace Mukupa of Nottingham Geospatial Institute at UNNC took to studying the use of terrestrial laser scanning (TSL) as a…

Bugholes in Concrete

According to ACI 347-04, “Guide to Formwork for Concrete”, bug holes are surface voids in concrete defined as small regular or irregular cavities that usually do not exceed 15 mm in diameter. They are the result of the entrapment of air bubbles in the surface of formed concrete during placement and consolidation. SmartRock® is #1 and we can prove it! Experience the world’s #1 concrete sensor. Get a Prove-It Kit Commonly occurring in vertical cast-in-place concrete such as walls columns and beams, bugholes vary in number and size and are influenced by many outside factors. Such factors are that of the condition of the material, the release agent type and application thickness, concrete mix characteristics and finally practices for placing and consolidation.Although the ACI 301-05 and ACI 301-10 do not specify a defined number of bugholes that are deemed permissible…

The Use of Pozzolans in place of Fly-Ash in Concrete Mix Design

Fly-ash, a component found in burning coal, is a common aggregate added to the composition of concrete as a means to increase strength. But because coal is being used less in the generation of electricity in particular states, including California, the issue of fly ash shortages needs to be addressed. That is, with these shortages, road construction and other concrete-dependent projects are threatened to be slowed down as there is not enough fly ash being generated to manufacture enough concrete. SmartRock® is #1 and we can prove it! Experience the world’s #1 concrete sensor. Get a Prove-It Kit With this in light, companies such as 3M are now working to develop new pozzolans or natural pozzolans which are derived from volcanic rock rather than coal.The city of Corona and the Corona Chamber of Commerce partnered on a symposium in order…

Replacing BT-Roads by Concrete to Improve Durability

Bitumen is a black, oily and viscous material that is a naturally occurring organic by-product of decomposed organic materials. It is a common binder that is mixed with and glued together aggregates to make asphalt and its primary use is found in road construction. However, due to the growing concern that these bitumen roads are getting damaged at regular intervals and more specifically at water logging points where stagnant water tends to pile, the Greater Hydrabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has now proposed to lay concrete blocks in these areas as a means to counteract this damage. SmartRock® is #1 and we can prove it! Experience the world’s #1 concrete sensor. Get a Prove-It Kit The corporation has proposed to lay concrete paver blocks at approximately 45 water stagnation points, explains GHMC commissioner B Janardhan Ready. “We have found that bitumen…

Concrete Re-Imagined – From Opaque to Translucent

When the image of concrete enters one’s mind, an object with the inherent characteristics of solidity, heaviness and opaqueness presents itself as this is the only form in which we have been exposed to. However, with the development of new concrete mixtures, this is about to change. Often dubbed as the ‘quintessential material’ and an ‘indispensable material’, engineers are now expanding concretes’ sculptural and expressive possibilities. SmartRock® is #1 and we can prove it! Experience the world’s #1 concrete sensor. Get a Prove-It Kit By switching the ingredients of traditional concrete with transparent ones, or embedding fiber optics, translucent concrete has now become a reality. That’s right –we are talking about concrete that acts both as window and wall – simultaneously glowing, ethereal and structural. Though as with any new material, challenges and problems related to cost and manufacturing ease…

Microbial Communities May Help us Detect Damaged Concrete

Concrete is known to be the world’s most common building material as it shapes our buildings, bridges and runways, sidewalks and more – and at first glance, one would assume that it is not a hospitable environment for living organisms. Freshly poured concrete for instance, has a pH level of 12.5 which is the same level as bleach. Once the concrete hardens, it becomes dry and salty and further, the temperature of concrete drops and rises drastically with respect to their environment. Despite this inhospitable setting however, there are a variety of types of microbes that do in fact survive on and in concrete. This discovery may be the key to unlocking a new method for early detection of structurally unsafe concrete. SmartRock® is #1 and we can prove it! Experience the world’s #1 concrete sensor. Get a Prove-It Kit…

What Will Happen if the Trump Wall Project Materializes?

Donald Trump plans on building a wall along the entire Mexican border if he is elected as the President of America as an attempt to hinder the migration of illegal immigrants making their way into the country. Interestingly some of the beneficiaries of this project would be Mexican concrete companies such as Cemex and Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua SAB. SmartRock® is #1 and we can prove it! Experience the world’s #1 concrete sensor. Get a Prove-It Kit With the potential cost of the project being estimated at $15 billion dollars (or more!), suppliers of building materials along the border region are in a position for great profitability. This wall which was proposed by the controversial Republican presidential nominee would likely emulate the design of the wall which separated Isreal from the West Bank – most of which was built using…

Asbestos in Old Concrete Buildings

When contractors have a job that entails demolition of an old concrete building from the early 1900’s one issue arises with respect to concerns about asbestos being included in the concrete mixture. SmartRock® is #1 and we can prove it! Experience the world’s #1 concrete sensor. Get a Prove-It Kit Noting that asbestos is a heat-resistant fibrous silicate mineral that can be woven into fabrics, it has historically been used for its fire-resistant and insulating qualities and to help prevent cracking. The issue lies in the fact that the inhalation of asbestos fibers aggravates lung tissues, which cause them to scar.Content writer for the Mesothelioma Center, Faith Franz states, “Asbestos was considered a good fiber reinforcement since it was inexpensive, readily available and easily blended into the mix.”Since the fibers of asbestos were evenly distributed through concrete mixtures and set…

To Repair or To Rebuild – That is the Question

Over the next several months, the concrete base of Oceanside’s municipal pier – an iconic 90-year old structure located in California – will be undergoing much needed repairs. However, city officials claim it still may need to be rebuilt entirely over the next few years. SmartRock® is #1 and we can prove it! Experience the world’s #1 concrete sensor. Get a Prove-It Kit The concrete structure, which is 300 feet long, starts at the west end of Pacific Street and ends at the shoreline. Recently hired crews will have the job of removing small pieces of the concrete surface that have been falling off, as well as repair where the concrete has begun to crack. A consultant will then be brought in to further assess the state of the structure.City officials say that the bridge, considered a pedestrian bridge, is…

Self-Healing Concrete – Embedding Self-Activating Bacteria

Apart from water, concrete is the most widely produced and consumed material on earth, according to a WBCSD report. This material is what paves our roads, spans our bridges and builds our buildings. It is a leading carbon emitter that goes unnoticed even though it surrounds us every day. In India for instance, it is estimated that its current cement output is responsible for 8% of the total global emissions. SmartRock® is #1 and we can prove it! Experience the world’s #1 concrete sensor. Get a Prove-It Kit Concrete is defined as a mixture of aggregates, water and cement which is made up of a hydraulic powder material. Due to its innate durability, thermal resistance and easily-sourced raw materials, there are no likely alternative building materials that will be taking its place on a large scale in the foreseeable future….

About Giatec

Giatec is a global company revolutionizing the construction industry by bringing smart testing technologies and real-time data collection to the forefront of every jobsite. Giatec’s suite of hardware and software products has leveraged advanced technologies such as AI and the Internet of Things (IoT), including wireless concrete sensors, mobile apps, and advanced non-destructive technologies (NDT) to drive innovation throughout concrete’s lifecycle and reduce concrete’s carbon footprint.

Our suite of hardware and software products has leveraged advanced technologies such as; Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Internet of Things (IoT), including; wireless concrete sensors, mobile apps, and advanced non-destructive technologies (NDT) to drive innovation throughout concrete’s lifecycle.

Combining wireless concrete sensors and mobile apps, Giatec has developed smart IoT-based technologies, like SmartRock® concrete maturity sensors, for real-time monitoring of concrete properties. This provides critical information to contractors so they can make efficient and informed decisions on the jobsite, ultimately saving time and money. Ready-mix producers also leverage the SmartRock® Plus cloud, which gives them access to concrete performance data to optimize their mix designs.

Wireless Sensors and NDT Technologies

Our suite of hardware and software products has leveraged advanced technologies such as; Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Internet of Things (IoT), including; wireless concrete sensors, mobile apps, and advanced non-destructive technologies (NDT) to drive innovation throughout concrete’s lifecycle.

Combining wireless concrete sensors and mobile apps, Giatec has developed smart IoT-based technologies, like SmartRock® concrete maturity sensors, for real-time monitoring of concrete properties. This provides critical information to contractors so they can make efficient and informed decisions on the jobsite, ultimately saving time and money. Ready-mix producers also leverage the SmartRock® Plus cloud, which gives them access to concrete performance data to optimize their mix designs.

 

Get Real-Time Data with SmartRock®

See how it works today

We use cookies to provide you with a better experience, analyze site traffic and assist in our marketing efforts. By continuing to use this website, you consent to the use of cookies in accordance with our Privacy Policy Page.