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Tomorrow's Technology Today
Optical Sensing Solutions, IoT
Akron Spillway Cofferdam
OPTICAL INTEGRATIONS
Spillway Dam Information
City of Akron Water Supply Construction began in 1913 to create the Lake Rockwell basin One of the three reservoirs that supplies over 300,000 people in Akron, Ohio with drinking water. Lake Rockwell covers over 800 acres and the Akron Dam spillway is 280 feet long from bank to bank. This work received federal funding and was organized by the City of Akron Water Supply to monitor the integrity and behavior of the spillway for possible failures or other damage by integrating a sensing system into an already established optical network near the Dam. The existing optical network facilitated other devices around Lake Rockwell connected directly to Akron Water Works filtration plant.
Objective
ChM4 won the contract turnkey to install concrete optical based strain, tilts and accelerometers. Akron requested our IntelliOptics software hosted on the Akron servers chosen for its sophisticated abilities to produce automated reports and warning system based on Akron Water's protocols for monitoring of spillway structure. FBG optical sensors allowed for quicker installation compared to conventional analog strain gages that require power. The pre existing buried optical network allowed for integration of FBG sensors with security cameras to their command and control center. This system helps clients control their assets to evaluate the existing spillway remaining life expectancy due to its age and for public safety.
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ChM4 used existing buried Optical trunk cable to carry all data for viewing of the optical sensing system at Akron command and control center. Most Cities have spare (unused) optical fibers or dark fiber allowing this type of system to use existing infrastructure to facilitate Smart City's using IOT (Internet Of Things) will be more common. The optical sensors require no power which allows much simipler installations than conventional technologies.
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ChM4 builds simple 3D model for all projects used for pre-assemble of optical sensor system and location approvals. We use these models as a part of IntelliOptics® software for analysis of data and to give engineers a better understanding of sensor locations.
Simple model built used for pre-assemble of optical sensor system and location approvals. The model also used in the cloud SQL user interphase software IntelliOptics®.
Sensor System Map
ChM4 designed the system to have only one DAU Luna optical interrogator combining the newest optical sensors. The system was hosted on Akron servers for internal use with proper credentials. The monitoring system provided Luna optical sensors (28) os3610's 1 meter long strain gages, (3) os4350's arranged evenly for environment temperature, (6) os7500's accelerometers concrete signature changes, (2) FBG Korea tilt meters to understand cofferdam equalizing that occur. The system used two existing cameras integrated into IntelliOptics® used for security and weather observations.
ChM4 structural health monitoring installation of FBG optical strain sensors, tilts and accelerometers, water depth, control panels and software turnkey project.