Things you need to know about monitoring construction vibrations
The construction industry is undoubtedly thriving in Australia, bolstered by multi-billion dollar federal and state government investment in infrastructure projects in major cities like Sydney- the capital of NSW. However, it’s not that just the business is flowing for contractors working on rail projects like Sydney Metro Northwest and Sydney Metro City and Southwest rail links. The construction activities have also ramped up in recent years on the large-scale NorthConnect and WestConnect developments in outer Sydney.
Working on construction sites is no easy job. Reason- every construction site requires the usage of vibration-inducing heavy machinery, which causes the risk to nearby structures due to ground-borne vibration. As a result, Construction Vibration Monitoring in Syndey has become a standard practice for many construction activities. Moreover, failure to define and comply with the maximum vibration limits during construction can lead to significant building repair costs for the contractor.
Vibration monitoring is a beneficial way of assessing possible damage to the existing buildings and infrastructure caused by programmed construction, blasting, demolition, or other construction activities with construction vibration monitoring. The main goal is to understand the ground vibrations at the source and associated attenuations at buildings surrounding the construction site. If you are still unclear about the vibration monitoring at construction sites, continue reading!
How does construction vibration monitoring work?
As said, vibration analysis is a process of monitoring vibration levels and investigating the patterns in vibration signals. This analysis is conducted on time waveforms of the vibration signals and the frequency spectrum. This analysis reveals when and how severe the abnormal vibration events occur based on the parameters that include root-mean-square (RMS), skewness, crest factor, peak amplitude, standard deviation, kurtosis, and many more. Vibrations at construction sites are measured through various vibration monitoring systems depending on different vibrations.
Numerous companies in Sydney provide vibration monitoring services to help property owners detect, document, and monitor pre-existing damages (if any) before extensive vibration activities or during construction. These companies utilise systems that can acquire vibration signals per the pre-defined parameters such as sampling frequency, recording length, vibration level, recording intervals and frequency bandwidths. Then the system process the recorded vibration and translates the information into intuitive indications for the machine operators, maintenance staff and construction project managers.
Why are vibration monitoring services essential for construction?
Vibration damage can affect infrastructures nearby; however, the type of damage can range from minimal levels that hardly cause any structural damage to the highest levels that can cause severe damage. Hazardous conditions may arise anytime at a construction site; moreover, if your machinery is not operating correctly, you are advised to take preemptive actions to keep your employees safe. According to the current data, the construction industry in Australia employs more than one million people. Particularly in Sydney, there are approximately 186,330 people employed in the construction industry. If the safety of such a vast population of workers doesn’t bother you, here are a few more reasons why you should consider vibration monitoring services.
You can prevent costly downtime.
One of the important reasons contractors consider getting Construction Vibration Monitoring in Syndey done is that it helps them prevent costly downtime and keep the process running. Moreover, this allows your workers to spend time on more productive tasks.
You can save money
With vibration monitoring, you can be proactive about the condition of your heavy-duty machinery and avoid major production failures. In addition, it will help you in quantifying sensitivities at your building site and vibration mitigation. You will also understand which activities in nearby facilities may be affected by construction. Knowing this allows the contractors to use alternate methods and schedule construction activities accordingly, saving you a lot of money.