A team of Iowa State University professors is looking to market technology ideas and products to improve productivity and efficiency in all realms of the construction industry.
Their company - G-Rad Systems - began with the creation of their first innovation, an onsite measurement system for the compactiveness of soil.
Ed Jaselskis, an ISU associate professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering, and Russ Walters and Dave White, assistant professors of civil, construction and environmental engineering, incorporated their business at the ISU Research Park last summer.
A primary stage of road building is testing the soil. The more compact it is, the better. If the soil does not meet requirements, the road that's built could fall apart.
The tool used to measure compactness is known as a DCP, or dynamic cone penetrometer. The tool is a thin steel rod that is driven into the ground by a drop hammer and an anvil. If the soil is more compact, it takes more drops of the hammer to drive the meter-long rod into the ground.
But the process is slow. Someone records the information on a pad of paper, takes it back to the office, enters the numbers into the computer, calculates and evaluates the results and reports back to the site.
The professors knew there had to be a better, more efficient way.
And along came G-Rad.
G-Rad stands for "G"eotechnical "R"emote "A"cquisition of "D"ata.
The team created a software program that can calculate readings instantly as they are entered into a spreadsheet. By putting the program onto a personal data assistant, calculations and decisions can be made on site.
|
|
By sliding a Global Positioning System unit on the top of the personal data assistant, G-Rad also records the exact location of the test site. This way, several areas can be surveyed and the program can tell which areas meet requirements and which do not.
Avoiding trips back to the office to log the same data on paper and then into a computer increases efficiency.
But the G-Rad system isn't done yet.
The next development for the G-Rad System is creating a wireless technology for the device. This would allow the data to travel directly from the compactiveness tool hammering its way into the ground to the personal data assistant software.
A worker should be able to wear the system on his or her belt while he works the machinery, thus eliminating the extra set of hands now needed for the job.
The current device for measuring soil compactiveness was developed by the Army and it, along with the Navy, remain the largest users of the tool, said White, the president of G-Rad Systems. The device, for example, is being used in Iraq right now, White said.
The dynamic cone penetrometer is catching on with department of transportation workers across the country as well. There are about 300 of the devices at department of Transportation agencies across the country, White said.
The G-Rad team is now working with the largest distributor of the devices to help market G-Rad.
The professors now have seven G-Rad devices out on a trial basis to transportation departments and consultant offices and have performed demonstrations for the Army and Navy.
