Balfour Beatty’s Hong Kong business, Gammon Construction, has made significant concrete waste savings by integrating concrete sensor data with BIM in what is claimed to be “the world’s first digital twin of site concreting”.
Gammon is using the latest version of Converge’s ConcreteDNA Pro, which integrates concrete sensor data with BIM and provides material performance analytics to form a digital twin.
The new cellular gateway introduced in ConcreteDNA Pro, Converge Signal, automatically transmits sensor data (measuring the compressive strength of concrete as it cures) to the cloud in real time. Previously, concrete data had to be collected manually via the Converge app.
ConcreteDNA Pro introduces concrete performance and temperature differential analytics, which means project teams can track and ensure concrete is meeting expected standards. This means cube testing procedures can be reduced, resulting in lower carbon emissions.
Gammon has saved more than 110 tonnes of concrete waste by reducing testing by approximately 14,000 test cubes – a one-third reduction – on its Hong Kong Science & Technology Parks Corporation’s Advanced Manufacturing Centre (AMC) project in Hong Kong. Insights from the performance analytics allowed Gammon to optimise materials, selecting the right mix to suit programme requirements, meaning less cement was used, lowering the project’s carbon footprint.
Gammon chief executive Thomas Ho said: “ConcreteDNA Pro has really enabled us to take strides in evolving our processes for the future of construction. We’re not just building faster, but we’re building more reliably, safely, to a higher standard, and making huge gains on our sustainability targets.”
Gammon director – building Sammy Lai added: “The AMC project team no longer needs to collect data from each pour, saving considerable manpower and avoiding potential human error. The curing predictions and notifications that a pour has reached the required strength also mean the right people get to the right place at the right time. The contextual information to the curing predictions has allowed our team to coordinate better, allocate resources more efficiently, and mitigate project risks by planning ahead with better 4D oversight.”
