 Mascot Towers, Sydney 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.
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 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. 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.  Easy Installation  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:
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. “The cost of the wireless monitoring makes more sense than a couple of employees driving around different locations, taking measurements every few months. It eliminates errors, increases safety in remote locations and reduces costs because it is less labour-intensive,” - Kim Malcolm, Geomotion Minas Gerais is still recovering from the 2015 Samarco collapse which buried a village and poured toxic waste into a major river. Vale chief executive Fabio Schvartsman said the dam that burst was being decommissioned and its capacity was about a fifth of the total waste spilled at Samarco. Schvartsman said there had not been any recent construction around the dam and apologised without taking responsibility in a television interview. “Apologies to society, apologies to you, apologies to the whole world for what has happened,” he said. “I don’t know who is responsible, but you can be sure we’ll do our part.” The disaster prompted the world’s largest miners to announce risk reviews of their tailings facilities. BHP Ltd, which was Vale’s JV partner in Samarco, said it had “significantly increased the rigour of its assessment and management” of tailings since 2015, including a risk review which resulted in more than 400 actions being assigned to company assets. “These actions are 93% complete, with the remaining actions considered low priority such as administrative actions and long-lead items regarding closure and climate change impacts. None of these actions is overdue,” the company said in a statement on February 19. Rio Tinto Ltd – which has 100 active tailing facilities and a further 36 closed or under rehabilitation – said its tailings facilities were subject to three levels of governance and assurance. “In August 2015, Rio Tinto introduced a standard for management of tailings and water storage facilities in order to ensure all our managed facilities are operated in accordance with one global standard,” chief executive J-S Jacques said. “In light of this tragic event, Rio Tinto is again reviewing its global standard and, in particular, assessing how we can further strengthen the existing audit of facilities.” Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the disaster is how late Vale was in recognising the dangers. Schvartsman said equipment had shown the dam was stable on January 10 and it was too soon to say why it collapsed. However, according to Geomotion Australia managing director Kim Malcolm, modern instrumentation and software allow for real-time monitoring of tailings facilities. “In the past it was prohibitive to have real-time monitoring because of all the cabling required but now wireless data loggers are readily available; there was never previously anything available that could do that,” he said. Geomotion works with a number of major miners in Australia including Rio Tinto, South32 Ltd and Newmont Australia providing geotechnical and structural instrumentation and asset monitoring. Malcolm said the days of having just a few sensors on a tailings dam, intermittently monitored by hand were rapidly ending. “The cost of the wireless monitoring makes more sense than a couple of employees driving around different locations, taking measurements every few months. It eliminates errors, increases safety in remote locations and reduces costs because it is less labour-intensive,” he said. Software such as the Mission Monitoring operating system also allows companies to anticipate problems as well as alerting them to impending spills. “It is less about the alarms but about the constant, real-time review,” Malcolm said. “It allows you to see the trends well before anything happens.” The web-based software could also present opportunities for companies to better relate their tailings management to affected communities. “The software is designed so alarms are set up on individual smart phones,” Malcolm said. “It allows companies to select who has access to the alarms and they can even present the monitoring data on open websites to ensure their management has a more public-facing interface.” – Dominic Piper - Australia's Paydirt (March 2019)  Geomotion have been commissioned to supply and install geotechnical instrumentation for the Waste Fines Storage Facility Project at Hope Downs 4 DSP Pit. The Hope Downs 4 (HD4) mine is an iron ore mine located in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, 100 kilometres northwest of Newman. The mine is partly owned and operated by Rio Tinto Iron Ore (RTIO) and is one of twelve iron ore mines the company operates in the Pilbara. UON’s client RTIO required an increase in capacity to the mining site's current waste fines facilities, necessary to continue plant operations. The works involved supply, install and construct the piping and waste fines facilities infrastructure including geotechnical monitoring equipment, relocation of existing infrastructure inclusive of the removal and replacement of HV and fibre optic cable, pumping equipment and an extension to the piping facilities inclusive of trenching earthworks. The geotechnical monitoring system used the proven Vibrating Wire (VW) Technology on Piezometers and Pressure Cells running below ground conduit excavation along the pit bench attached to Load Sensing VW Node Dataloggers inside two Terminal Boxes located at the pit surface for remote monitoring. The VW Piezometers were installed in 20L buckets filled with saturated waste fines slurry to measure and monitor pore water pressures. The VW Pressure Cells were installed on 500x200mm blinding concrete plinths, backfilled with waste fines, to determine the distribution, magnitude and directions of total soil pressure. The design will be used to monitor and control placement of fill and essentially provide adequate warning of excess soil pressures into the operational life of the pit structure. Geomotion Australia are pleased to have completed their first installations on the Forrestfield-Airport Link. The installations of combined inclinometers / extensometers / piezometers as part of the Forrestfield Dive site mark the beginning of an extensive monitoring program set to continue for the next three years.  Geomotion Australia are part of the FGLS Joint Venture, bringing together Australia’s foremost surveying company, Land Surveys, and Italian monitoring specialists Field Monitoring Australia. The FGLS Joint Venture is providing a complete monitoring solution to the lead contractors SI-NRW JV, a joint venture between Salini Impregilio and Perth’s own NRW Civil & Mining. Geomotion Australia are responsible for the installation and monitoring of all geotechnical and structural instrumentation for the project. Instruments and data loggers will be supplied by Italian manufacturers SISGEO. As well as installation and monitoring, Geomotion are implementing and managing the MIMS (Monitoring Information Management System), Maxwell Geosystem’s Mission OS. The Forrestfield-Airport Link project will provide a rail link between Bayswater and Forrestfield, including the construction of three new train stations, Belmont, Airport Central and Forrestfield. The twin tunnels travel beneath critical pieces of infrastructure; including airport runways and existing rail networks. To ensure the highest quality of construction and safety, SI-NRW has put in place the most extensive monitoring program in WA history, and Geomotion Australia is proud to be involved.  Geomotion recently completed the establishment of a complete remote monitoring solution for South32 at its Worsley Alumina refinery near Collie. The system draws on data from piezometers spread over 5km across the site.  Worsley Alumina South-32 Refinery Manual monitoring of piezometers across the site was a lengthy process usurping a significant amount of man hours to ensure the safety of the plant infrastructure. With the new system implemented by Geomotion Australia, data is updated daily on a web based data management platform, with the ability to increase read frequency during critical periods. It allows up to date monitoring, comparison to weather events or pumping activity on site, and offers a comprehensive yet accessible review and report functions.  Worsley Control Room The Loadsensing G6 data logging system allows up to 10 years power autonomy, yet maximum coverage across the site. With a single Gateway positioned at the site communications tower, the site is covered for monitoring of tailings dams across the facility. Maxwell Geosystem’s Mission Monitor powers the data management and reporting functions.
The project follows the successful implementation of over thirty G6 data loggers across the Illawarra Region with Geosensing Solutions on behalf of South32. 
Worldsensing LS-G6 long range radio data loggers are changing the way Australians are monitoring their projects. Now implemented on major projects in every state in Australia, the system is proving its reliability and ease of use.
Geomotion Australia are utilising the system to monitor train stations in Perth; highway developments in Ballina and Adelaide; dams in the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Tasmania, as well as processing plants in Western Australia and schools and high-rise apartment buildings in Melbourne. Through simplicity, low-to-no maintenance requirements and low cost, the LS-G6 system is bringing automation and remote data access to sites where previously the cost and practicalities would have been prohibitive. The LS-G6 models are capable of reading Vibrating Wire (VW), analogue and digital sensors. This means that on a single site we are monitoring groundwater, cracks, structural health and pile deformation with the same data system, each with a low-profile autonomous data logger recording and transmitting the data. To find out more about how Geomotion Australia can assist your project with the LS-G6 Monitoring System, select from the links below or call us on 1300 884 542.
 Project: New Perth Stadium Station
Site: Burswood, Perth Client: Prism Alliance ( Laing O’Rourke, Aecom, Perth Transport Authority) In 2018, the multi-purpose 60,000 seat new Perth Stadium will open for the kick-off of the AFL season. To ensure the safe and efficient movement of the crowd within an hour of an event finishing, the new six-platform Stadium Station will be one of the new infrastructure as a part of the transport strategy. Indeed, 28,000 people are expected to leave from the new Perth Stadium Station. Geomotion has recently completed the installation of eight Vibrating Wire Piezometers, six 4-20mA pressure transducers, seven MEMS tiltmeters, three Settlement Plates and two inclinometers as part of the Perth Stadium Station Project which will be finalised in advance of the 2018 AFL season. The equipment is used to monitor the pore water pressure, the piezometric head of ground water during dewatering, the tilt of the Victoria Park Bridge and the settlement of surcharge. Considering the scale of the project and the distances between the sensors installed, it made sense to use the LS-G6 long range wireless telemetry system by its cost effectiveness and long range performance. The gateway receives the data from all the sensors installed onsite with a distance of 3.5 Kilometers form the furthest monitoring point then relays data to our web-based data presentation package, ARGUS. Using this system, the client can receive the data in real time and be warned via SMS / Email if any instrument exceeds the set alarm thresholds.  Geomotion Australia’s partner company, Specto Technology, have developed the VW-Stalker, a vibrating wire interface for the Rippa, our low power, low cost 3G logger.
This new interface allows you to connect up to four vibrating wire devices to a single Rippa unit, giving you reliable remote monitoring at a low cost. To find out more, please email info@geomotion.com.au or call 1300 884 542. |
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