For more than a century, in order to determine concrete’s strength, contractors would cast specimens in cylinders and then put them into a machine to crush them to determine the strength of the concrete that was placed.
“That technology hasn’t changed for 100 years,” says Greg McKinnon, operations manager for Stoneway Concrete. “It’s not necessarily representative of the strength of the structural element. It only tells you the strength of the concrete in that cylinder.”
Now, low-cost wireless sensors are replacing this century-old practice. Stoneway Concrete sells Giatec concrete sensors to contractors and uses them on its own projects to gain a more accurate and valuable understanding of concrete performance and to speed up construction processes.
