safety, sustainability, and efficiency. It’s improving the way we do things in the construction industry from the office, to equipment and materials, and on the jobsite. From connected jobsites to BIM, technol- ogy is enabling engineers and contractors to optimize project schedules and streamline the building process from start to finish. New apps are helping agencies and contractors keep data in order in the office by tracking everything from license bonds, to safety records, and inventory. Smart technology in the office is only the beginning. Al- though they are still making their way into worldwide markets, autono- mous trucks are becoming a thing of the present. Safer work zones are becoming a reality with driverless vehicle technology as autonomous attenuator trucks and impact protection vehicles are hitting the roads and removing danger from drivers and vehicle controllers. Soon we should start seeing the use of autonomous concrete trucks, bulldozers, excavators, and more on and off the jobsite. Smart concrete and sensors Concrete structures make up a large portion of physical infrastructure around the world and concrete continues to be a building material of choice for civil and structural engineers. Although aging and deteriora- tion of concrete leads to loss of structural integrity, it is still one of the most sustainable and long-lasting building materials in the construc- tion industry. As we develop smart cities and technology continues to evolve, engineers are developing new ways to monitor the structural state of concrete during the curing period, which ultimately helps in- crease the lifespan and safety of concrete structures. Smart concrete is being developed using conductive or semi-conduc- tive fillers, such as carbon fibers, steel slag, carbon black, or nanophase materials, which are added to cement-based materials and are able to provide higher strength and strain resistance than conventional con- crete. Due to its conductivity, the use of smart concrete can aid in traffic
monitoring, rebar corrosion monitoring, stress/strain or force/deforma- tion monitoring of concrete components, and more. Concrete producers are adopting smart concrete technology that allows them to have access to information necessary for optimizing concrete mixes. Sensors embedded within concrete at the time of placing are able to measure and relay information to smartphones and tablets through wireless technology. Being able to closely and accurately monitor temperature and strength of concrete during curing can help overcome potential drawbacks and monitor the overall health of concrete — a huge benefit to contractors and engineers. Data from the sensors is made immediately available to team members and project managers and ultimately helps reduce costs while increas- ing efficiency and allowing remote team members and offices to gain complete visibility into jobsite data. Moreover, with the help of artifi- cial intelligence and machine learning, the data collected from these sensors can in the long run help develop predictive analytics, which will further help improve construction projects and procedures and increase efficiency. The idea of a smart city is to implement high technology and smart sensors within its infrastructure to support the society, the environment, and the economy. These cities provide citizens and public workers with information necessary for the improvement of infrastructure and liv- ing every step of the way — starting with the building process. When pertaining to smart cities and construction, one the most important technologies is smart concrete sensors. As mentioned above, using smart sensors to monitor concrete health ultimately helps increase sustainability and infrastructure lifespan.
ROXANNE PEPIN is the digital marketing specialist with Giatec Scientific Inc. (www.giatec.ca).
is required, by industry standard, to keep for a minimum of 10 years. The engineering firm needed a solution that would allow it to identify legacy data and transparently move it to a live archive on a daily basis. The firm’s data is growing at approximately 20 percent annually. Its network environment included several HP MSL 4048 tape libraries, but LJA was looking for a networked attached storage (NAS) product that would provide a live archive and incorporate easily into its exist- ing infrastructure. A NAS device connected to a network allows storage and retrieval of data from a centralized location for authorized network users and heterogeneous clients. NAS devices are flexible and scale-out — as users need additional storage, they can add on to the existing system. The firm also wanted visibility across its storage. Many storage ap- plications and storage infrastructure only allow users to see the data located in a specific application (or type of hardware). The ability to
Handling data floods LJA Engineering archives legacy fileshare data using a joint Spectra Logic and Komprise solution.
Houston-based LJA Engineering, Inc. has been in business since 1972 when John “Dutch” Lichliter founded The Lichliter Company. As the company grew, it became LJAEngineering and Surveying in 1997, and then evolved again in 2011 to become the present-day LJA Engineer- ing, Inc. The employee-owned firm has scaled from 47 employees to more than 600, with multiple offices in Texas, Nebraska, and Florida. It is now a full-service firm that provides engineering, planning, and design services for private and government clients. LJA Engineering manages more than 300 terabytes (TB) of data that it
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march 2018
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