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Building Column Hydraulic Jacking
Dashboard
Welcome to our real-time monitoring dashboard, where we get serious about our strain gauges and load cells! On this page you’ll find live video streams, and up-to-the-second data related to the hydraulic jacking of an existing building column supporting an 18-story apartment building.
Now you may ask…why the heck are we even doing this? The answer to that very good question is really two parts. The first part is, well, because it’s cool! And the second part, and the most important thing, is that we need to track loads, strains and movements of the assembly to protect residents and the general public. We need to know what is going on with the load transfer on a second by second basis so we can act quickly if necessary.
This blend of high-level engineering, and cutting-edge analytics, keeps everyone safe while showcasing how modern structural health monitoring really works. Enjoy exploring the data as we apply hundreds of thousands of pounds of force to our steel weldments to effectively unload the column needed to facilitate its repair.
Background
General Contractor:
While full repairs to underground parking garage columns have become commonplace, similar repairs to building support columns has typically been avoided due to the risks, complexities, and lack of guiding repair methodologies.
On this project we were brought in by Conterra Restoration Ltd, a General Contractor specializing in the repair of reinforced concrete structures, to aid in the design, and complete the fabrication/installation of a temporary steel support structure that could be used to safely unload a section of a badly deteriorated building column (below you will find illustrations of the final design). As part of the unloading program, we were tasked with developing hydraulic jacking procedures, physically performing the jacking, and developing/installing a structural safety monitoring system. As you know from above, this system had to (and does) provide real-time feedback that can be used to analyse how the building is behaving during loading and unloading.
Schedule
We’re jacking in stages to ensure that the load transfer is achieved and stable over a period of time prior to demolition. On April 15th, we are applying up to 33% of the load, April 16th, - 67% of the load, and if all goes well, to 100% of the load on April 17th. So you should see various spikes occur in the data at certain time steps and not much else in between (those spikes will be us loading the column…or the building falling down, either one). Speaking of this data...
Data feed
Below you will find live sensor data which comes from our data acquisition system that was designed and manufactured in its entirety by the team at Enable. If you are interested in learning more, please feel to reach out.
Live Cam #1
Live Cam #2
Note: If the camera feeds don't appear try to refresh your browser once or twice.
How we're doing this
To complete this project our team designed, developed, and built highly customized computer-controlled systems. These included an advanced hydraulic control system utilizing custom valving and CNC valve manifolds, sensors (pressure transducers and resistive type load cells), embedded microcontrollers, etc to ensure precise pressure and flow regulation across multiple hydraulic circuits. We also developed a highly specialized data acquisition system—capable of reading from up to 50 sensors of varying types including: strain gauges, resistive type load cells, linear displacement sensors, and temp / rh sensors, and able to upload this data to the cloud to allow for real-time off-site monitoring throughout the repair process. By engineering and integrating these components, we are able to provide the highest level of safety oversight possible. Which, for a project involving an occupied structure, is an absolute must-have.
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