Digitization is a major opportunity for the mining sector, promising new levels of operational safety and efficiency through the addition of Internet of Things (IoT) and industrial IoT (IIoT) platforms to standard operational technology (OT). But it’s also a realm with a wide array of technology options, with connectivity alone encompassing standards such as Long-Term Evolution (LTE) and Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) plus low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) protocols such as LoRa (Long Range).

To help make sense of the options available to digital mining operations, IIoT leader Worldsensing and mining giant Vale hosted a webinar on how to leverage IoT technology to advance your mine’s IT strategy. This post covers some of the questions that were left unanswered at the end of the session, with replies from Worldsensing’s director of products, Bernat Trias, and CTO, Albert Zaragoza.

How effective is wireless monitoring in underground mines? Do you only do solutions for tailings dams?

Bernat: Worldsensing’s wireless monitoring system, Loadsensing, features nodes which are ruggedized and have been tested in temperatures ranging from -40ºC to +80ºC, so they can withstand harsh environments such as underground mines. Although we have a lot of deployments in tailings dams, Loadsensing nodes can read multi-point borehole extensometers, pressure cells and other frequently used sensors for underground monitoring. The Loadsensing laser distance meter node can be particularly useful for convergence monitoring. Loadsensing may also be used as a last-mile solution inside deep galleries. The nodes wirelessly send data to gateways underground that are connected to fiber-optic points used for machinery control and cameras, in order to transmit the data to the surface. We are open to projects to test the depth limits of our monitoring system and understand how ambient conditions may impact the network quality in deep underground mines.

What do you think is the biggest benefit of long-range wireless for the mining industry?

Bernat: The main benefits of long-range wireless monitoring include increased efficiency because mines don’t need to perform tedious manual monitoring, cost savings versus manual and cable monitoring workforce safety because the mining staff doesn’t need to take readings in perilous areas and risk management because of the real-time data and alerts that the monitoring system may provide.

How do you contract the maintenance of solutions? Do you have examples where clients purchase a solution and maintain it themselves, or does Worldsensing supply end-to-end solutions?

Albert: Worldsensing works with over 200 partners around the world who take care of all the installation and maintenance needs for our customers. If you are a big company that would like to self-maintain, you may contact us here. 

Do you have experience gathering technology from different devices? In other words, to integrate all that technology?

Albert: We have experience integrating loads of geotechnical sensors in different locations and have a product ready to integrate data and ingest data to and from third-party systems. Click here for an infographic showing some of the sensors that we can connect to in a tailings dam.

What is the cost per sensor using LoRa and how does it compare to LTE or GSM?

Bernat: The cost per sensor using LoRa is relatively lower compared to regular LTE and GSM primarily because of the low power consumption of LoRa devices and the associated connectivity fees, if any.

​We may help you evaluate the investment for your specific use case or project. Just get in touch with us here…

Article courtesy of our partners and friends at Worldsensing

Australian based geotechnical monitoring group Geomotion, has successfully come to a heads of agreement with SkyGeo for their cutting edge InSAR satellite monitoring technology to be used in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar and Indonesia.

Geomotion sees InSAR as complementary to existing instrumentation, not as a replacement, working so well together to offer their clients information that has previously been nearly impossible to obtain
 
InSAR stands for Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar and is a proven technique for measuring ground movements. Satellites record images of the Earth, and these images can be combined to measure movements of the ground surface.

InSAR is particularly useful for monitoring dynamic position changes. InSAR’s broad spectrum of impressive features allow for a new depth of insight for projects. A large number of measurements and weekly updates provide a detailed insight in the slope and speed of subsidence. A sudden drop of a small area might be a reason for local inspection. Wider gradual subsidence tells a different story.

​InSAR allows for possible millimetre accuracy, measurements of areas as small as 100m2 up to 10,000km2 and up to 100,000 measurements per km2. Additionally, the data archive goes back to 1992 and covers 70% of the Earth’s land, meaning in some cases it is possible to have data dating back up to 25 years.

​InSAR presents viable and important solutions across many industries, including Mining Stability, Tailings Dam Stability, Civil Engineering and Energy, including oil and gas projects both onshore and offshore.
 
Mining stability monitoring is a service to provide persistent geotechnical risk surveillance to identify areas of abnormal surface movement over time. Mines need to be up and running 24/7 and Geomotion helps achieve that goal by identifying instabilities early. By assessing time-dependent shape changes in InSAR data, geotechnical domain experts can identify patterns of instabilities.

This is a direct pathway to improve asset management in mining operations. Combined with strategically placed geotechnical or structural instrumentation a comprehensive monitoring plan is established.
 
Each mine has several areas of high geotechnical risk, that each require dedicated iterative assessment. Tailings dams pose a special category of risk. Because of environmental issues in the recent past, most mining experts are now looking for continuous monitoring systems to predict instability better. Solid tailings are often used as part of the structure itself and with the tailings being liquid or a slurry of fine particles within groundwater, significant instabilities arise in a variety of ways that are usually not completely understood. With InSAR, Geomotion can help with this understanding. We characterise and quantify these time-dependent degradation processes on a wide area scale and identify different dynamic patterns. Monitoring these patterns continuously is a proven permanent risk management method.

​Geomotion/SkyGeo JV configures InSAR monitoring solutions for their clients, each with a graph of deformation over time. Risk management practitioners use this for predictive maintenance. Geomotion/SkyGeo JV monitors subsidence for many civil engineering projects in this way including roads, railways, dams, bridges, tunnels, airports, pipelines, neighbourhoods, sewage systems, buildings and water defence.

InSAR technology is available from the Geomotion/Skygeo JV now. Enquiries regarding how InSAR can benefit your project can be made today by contacting Geomotion’s offices on 1300 884 542 or click here to send an email. Alternatively, use the form below and a Geomotion representative will ​get in touch with you soon.

​The City of Amsterdam is facing the huge task of assessing and potentially replacing 200 km of the quay walls along its charming old inner-city canals. Adjacent historical buildings are often susceptible to damage by nearby construction activities. Satellite InSAR is being used to monitor areas across the city. Monitoring subsidence is seen as a vital tool in the efforts to preserve the physical charm and historical assets of this scenery.

Deltares, the City of Amsterdam, TU Delft, and SkyGeo have published an article on the reliability of PS-INSAR usage compared to regular ground levelling and general InSAR data. It describes how the PS-InSAR process can considerably reduce the current lengthy period required for levelling updates and verifies the improvement in reliability when using a locally optimised SkyGeo InSAR dataset.

The City of Amsterdam started innovating by using levelling techniques centuries ago, when they introduced the NAP (National Reference Height). They have been measuring and placing markers on buildings throughout the city to aid in the assessment of subsidence. This is a profound effort as the inner-city is completely built on soft soil. Levelling and InSAR data usage are both used across the city to provide valuable insights on deformation. A direct comparison between levelling and satellite measurements means little, but researchers found a specific statistical procedure that is applied to levelling and satellite measurements to verify their reliability and determine the rate of vertical deformation of the buildings.

Permanent Scatterer SAR
The Permanent Scatterer SAR technique can measure deformations of objects with high reliability. Satellites launched in the last decade produce raw data to obtain deformation time series with high temporal and spatial resolution. Martijn Houtepen, InSAR Applications Expert at SkyGeo, was asked to supply two different datasets for the Amsterdam city area. One general dataset covering the entire city and a tailor-made locally optimised InSAR dataset. Three case studies were reviewed. The results exhibited a near 100% coverage for buildings in the SkyGeo locally optimised dataset. These structures all had reliable measurement points, greatly outnumbering general InSAR and regular levelling results.

​Conclusion of the PS -InSAR study
There is merit in the insight building fine-tuning of local datasets. Caution should be considered with generic, publicly available, InSAR datasets. All three case studies showed deformation rates of the satellite measurements are significantly higher than those of the levelling on the same buildings. Locally optimised PS-InSAR satellite measurements are most suitable for assessing the deformation rate of buildings in the Amsterdam inner-city.

PS-InSAR is available for Geomotion customers looking to scale trust with InSAR data.

Article courtesy of SkyGeo

1. Improves knowledge of the most critical potential failure mechanisms

It is important to identify the main cause of failings in order to plan better and to implement the correct measures to stop them.

Tailings dam failures can originate from overloads, anomalous behavior of the material used to build the dam (normally tailings), or from problems with the drainage mechanisms, which result in an increase of pore water pressure, and therefore a loss of resistance.

They can also result from other things, like poor monitoring systems, for instance. With manual or wired in-situ readings, operators do not have sufficient amounts of data to gain a clearer picture of the main factors playing a role in failure mechanisms. This massively increases risks in and around tailings dams, as those supervising the area cannot predictively act in order to stop potential failures. The amount of data and regularity with which it is collected through wireless monitoring solutions provides a solid basis for a correct risk analysis, and for building risk-potential models. This is key for long-term risk-planning and for understanding critical failure mechanisms.

2. Detects situations that are likely to trigger a failure of the dam

​Real-time data-gathering means that operators have continuous knowledge of the dam’s status. It also means that they can very quickly build “normative” models of how the dam should be behaving, meaning that any anomalies are flagged up as soon as they occur. This allows operators to detect situations that are likely to trigger a failure of the dam – such as water level exceeding a certain limit, or acceleration of horizontal displacements in depth – and to respond preemptively to these situations.

As such, wireless monitoring systems permit for the implementation of corrective measures as soon as possible, preferably before any kind of incident can take place.

This is key not only to reducing risk and saving human lives but also to a business’ profit margins. Post-incident remedial action and the downtime of the dam cost significantly more than predictive maintenance activities.

3. Serves as a tool for designing the dam’s growth

Accumulated data-sets gathered through wireless monitoring devices are key to the successful future planning of the dam’s growth. Rather than create a growth strategy based on historical memory and previous actions, with a wireless monitoring solution, operators can use solid data to implement models that show the future probable status of the dam and its environs, and allow them to plan more accurately for any possible future changes and incidents within the context of its growth.

As part of an Operational Intelligence solution, wireless monitoring data can also be used to create “digital twins” or parts of the dam, or the whole site, in order to virtually model future actions in a “videogame” version of the environment.

Either way, wireless monitoring means that the risk of future failures and incidents is significantly reduced, through using the most scientific methods possible to calculate future risk potential.

4. Provides a sound basis for the establishment and implementation of the proper response in case of a failure involving human hazards

Equipped with the ability to model future incidents and predictively respond, operators can establish set responses to particular incidents that regularly happen, and set up crisis contingency plans in the case of an emergency.

This is all enabled through the constant relay of precise data about the status of different parts of the tailings dam.

For example, wireless nodes transmitting data from water level meters and inclinometers installed on boreholes enable periodic controls. Piezometric sensors provide information regarding the pore water pressure, and the measurement of the ground displacement in depth is automated by an in-place inclinometer which allows operators to measure the horizontal displacement on depth. Waste management gauges, which measure the water level in the dam or settlement cells to monitor the settlement processes of the walls and surroundings, are also crucial here. Moreover, meteorological stations measure variables such as rainfall and wind speed and are critical in terms of allowing operators to consider and plan for new climatic scenarios – especially in the context of climate change and increasingly erratic weather patterns. Again, this allows for predictive and early-stage responses to any potential anomalies that arise, massively reducing the risk of incidents occurring.

5. Provides long-term monitoring with very little maintenance

A monitoring system that is both long-term and low-maintenance is absolutely critical for tailings dam environments.

Manual maintenance of sensors and data-loggers – and more – is in itself incredibly risky, meaning that maintenance of a monitoring solution must be minimal.

​This requires durability so that equipment can survive in sometimes very harsh physical conditions; longevity of battery life, so that equipment does not need to be placed frequently; and long-distance transmittance, so that it can continuously relay data from difficult, hard to reach environments over long periods of time. Depending on the system used, the long-range communication between the gateway and the dataloggers in most wireless monitoring systems allows for a distance of up to 9 miles or 15 km between the gateway and the data-loggers in an optimal situation. In the context of a mine, this means that, by placing the gateway in the mine’s central office, almost any point of the mine where a sensor is placed can be reached, meaning that no manual readings ever need to take place. Embedded, long-life batteries make remote data acquisition systems autonomous for up to 10 years, enhancing the maintenance cycles of the monitoring system. This massively reduces risks as equipment rarely fails, meaning continuous, accurate readings for years. In turn, this decreases potential downtime and means that there is no need to manually maintain the monitoring system.

Article courtesy of Worldsensing

Albany Wind Farm is an 18 turbine wind farm with the southern hemisphere’s largest wind turbines. It has the capacity to meet 80% of Albany’s power needs.

Geomotion were appointed by WSP to provide a monitoring system for the farm.  The aim of the project is to monitor the service life of the turbine foundations at Albany Wind Farm.

​By installing tiltmeters on the base of three of the twelve turbines, WSP is intending to establish the extent of foundation movement, the extent of fatigue damage on the tensioned ground anchors and the extent of fatigue damage to the concrete foundation.  

Geomotion installed two Biaxial Tiltmeters to each of the three chosen turbines at 90° angles form one another with the intention of monitoring the vertical movement of the foundation in four directions.

The sensors where glued to the base of each turbine mast using high strength epoxy resin glue, each covered with a protective metal vandal proof cover.

​To allow the client to gain near-real time data of the foundation movement we attached these sensors to YDOC, Model number WL-N315ADS Data loggers. These loggers record the tilt on a 15 minute basis and provide a report email daily.

Premier Coal is situated in the Collie Coal Basin in the South West of Western Australia,
approximately 200km south-south-east of Perth. ​The mining operations are about 15km east of the town of Collie, which is situated in the jarrah forests of WA.

Premier Coal Mine produces a clean coal with low ash and sulphur content such that it does not need to be washed and requires only crushing, sizing and blending prior to use. The coal handling equipment installed at the Premier Coal Mine is very effective. The system has been designed to supply coal in a very consistent way so that there are no variations in quality.

The coal handling plant consists of a crusher, screening plant, stockpile stacker, reclaimer and delivering system for Premier’s customers, either by conveyor, rail or truck.

As part of Premier’s open cut pit monitoring, over 29 piezometers were installed in 11 locations across the area. Previously, the data was collected manually by site personnel.

Geomotion proposed the Loadsensing G6 Data Logging system to automate the collection process, including a 5-channel node at each location and a centralised gateway. The data is presented directly in Premier’s data management software.

This system fully automates the collection and presentation of piezometer readings, ensuring the data available for analysis is kept up to date at all times.

​Mascot Towers is the high-profile residential building in Sydney that was evacuated in June 2019 due to serious concern about its structural integrity.
 
With the rapid growth of our cities and the increasing need for affordable housing, buildings similar to Mascot Towers are popping up quickly throughout Sydney and other major Australian cities.

​Concerns were initially raised when significant cracking began to occur suddenly through the building’s basement foundations (see image below).

Geomotion were engaged by the remedial engineers to supply and install structural monitoring equipment on critical areas in the building's basement.
 
A site walkover was undertaken on the Monday morning after the evacuation, the same day Geomotion was first contacted. Sensors were installed and commenced sending live data to Geomotion Cloud, Geomotion's online data hosting platform, by the very next day.

Geomotion's precision monitoring systems can be utilised, not only after a major structural failure event, but also during construction and throughout a building's lifespan to provide critical information on a building's structural health, early warning alarms and peace of mind for all stakeholders.

​Geomotion technicians carried out the installation of 4 tilt meters on critical areas on the basement slab, with four additional tilt meters set to be installed soon.

A 3G telemetry gateway was installed to enable data to be transmitted remotely – importantly removing the need to be inside the building to retrieve data.
 
Geomotion's data team set up the online portal on Geomotion Cloud, where data is displayed in easy to interpret plots.
 
Geomotion also integrated external survey data into Geomotion Cloud, offering the client a centralised platform to view all data, enabling them to make quick and informed decisions. 

Want to ensure the safety and reliability of your major property asset? Geomotion can help. Contact us today for an obligation free discussion on how our precision monitoring solutions can provide key information in real time to prevent costly and dangerous critical failures. Suitable for new construction and existing building monitoring.

The Omnidots SWARM is a revolution in vibration monitoring!

If you are concerned with asset monitoring and the risk of vibrations causing damage to buildings and other structures, monitor vibrations with Omnidots.

The SWARM vibration monitor, together with the Geomotion Cloud web platform, provides you with insight into vibrations and helps you ensure that vibrations remain within the set limits. With Omnidots' vibration monitoring solutions, you are in control of all your projects, simply by using your smartphone, tablet or laptop.
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This budget-friendly vibration monitor is more cost efficient than alternative solutions as well as being cutting edge technology with vastly improved precision data and reporting.

Measured in accordance with Australian Guidelines and combined with Geomotion Cloud software, Omnidots SWARM is the premier vibration monitoring solution available today.

The Queen's Wharf development in Brisbane is a GLS Monitoring project involving Geomotion and Land Surveys.

The project, part of the redevelopment of the Queen’s Wharf Precinct into a new world-class integrated resort, includes full automation of existing monitoring devices, as well as the installation of additional instruments including:

• Geomotion Cloud Software & Reporting,
• Automated Total Stations,
• Prisms,
• Joint meters,
• Vibration monitoring, and
• Solar Powered Systems

The project includes a staged warning system during Maritime works as part of the construction management plan, as well as monitoring of key structures including the Riverside Expressway.

January’s fatal tailings dam collapse at Vale SA’s Corrego do Feijao mine has sent the global mining industry once again scrambling to check the integrity of its tailings management systems.

The January 26 tailings dam collapse at the Corrego do Feijao mine near the town of Brumadinho, in Minas Gerais, killed more than 300 people and came just four years after the Samarco tailings collapse in the same state became Brazil’s worst environmental disaster and also killed 19 people.

Brazi’s mining regulator ordered Vale to suspend operations at its Fabrica and Vargem Grande complexes immediately after the Brumadinho disaster.

In a statement, Vale said the mining regulator ordered the suspension in light of the possible failure of five dams at the mining sites in the interior state of Minas Gerais. Since then, both authorities and mining companies have stepped up scrutiny of so-called upstream dams, which have been subject to multiple high-profile failures in recent years.

In a statement, Vale said it was abiding by the regulator’s decision but was asking the body for permission to dismantle the dams, while continuing some operations at the mine, “which would bring about limited impacts on production”.

The miner did not offer an estimate on how much production likely would be lost. However, the company had previously planned to maintain operations at Fabrica via dry mining, which eliminates the need for upstream dams. The company estimated that plan would result in 3mt of lost production in 2019.
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