Concrete computer facilitates casting of the West Link

Published 2024-08-08

Construction of the West Link is underway above and below ground around Gothenburg. At the Kallebäck exit west of the E6, concrete engineer Frida Mesch and her colleagues at NCC are busy pouring concrete inside and outside the southern tunnel mouth of the rail link. They use around 30 concrete computers to keep a constant eye on the strength of the concrete.

There is a flurry of activity when we meet Frida Mesch in Kallebäck. Excavators are used to prepare the ground and rebar is laid down for future pours. Frida is a fairly new concrete engineer. It was mostly a coincidence that I chose this particular career. After high school, Frida trained as a flight instructor. Largely to get flying hours and then be able to further train as a pilot. But after a while she got tired of it and was tipped off by a staffing agency about a position at a company that manufactures concrete pipes.

– I really liked it there, but after a while I felt that I wanted to develop myself further. When I was on maternity leave and was actually looking for courses for my partner, I found out about a course at Yrkesakademin to become a concrete engineer,” Frida says and continues:

– I was already working with concrete and thought it was a fun material. So I became interested in learning more. I have always been insatiable on learning new things.

Thesis on the concrete computer
At the end of her education, Frida had an internship at NCC. It was then that she became aware of the Celsicom remote monitoring system and the Celsicom TC603 concrete computer.

– Someone in our project had heard about Celsicom and thought we should use it for our castings. But none of my colleagues knew exactly how the monitoring system worked, so it was my job to find out,” says Frida.

This resulted in Frida doing her thesis on the concrete computer from Celsicom and the associated cloud service Celsiview where all measurement data is saved and documented during both ongoing and completed casting. In order to clarify various issues during the thesis, Frida received valuable help from Fredrik Andersson and Stefan Carlsson at Celsicom AB.

“Everything is very simple“
A clear advantage of Celsicom’s concrete computer emerged during the thesis work, says Frida:

– Simplicity. Everything from settings to use is very simple. When you look at other concrete computers, you’re a bit intimidated by how technically complicated they look.

Her evaluation of the standard recipes in Celsiview showed that there is not much difference in the strength calculation if you have a slightly different recipe but it still contains the same cement as a base, Frida says and elaborates:

– You don’t need to make strength calculations yourself. The system does that for you. And the strength calculation is always based on empirical measurements of conditions in and around the concrete, whether I calculate it myself or let the computer do the job. In the end, whatever the method of calculation, you still have to drill out a core and test it to know exactly.

This and other knowledge of the Celsicom monitoring system is of great use to Frida in her daily work at NCC. She and her colleagues use no fewer than 32 concrete computers to pour floor slabs, walls and roofs for the area at the southern tunnel mouth of the West Link.

Clients receive detailed documentation
Frida praises, among other things, the ability to get the current status of an ongoing casting.

– For example, if I cast something the other day and want to check the strength, I can go into the mobile and get a message very quickly. It’s incredibly convenient.

The concrete computers are also used to measure the temperature of the cooling water to and from the concrete. The temperature difference in these water flows must not be more than four degrees. If this happens, it can cause stresses in the concrete, which can lead to cracks.

– Another great advantage of the Celsiview cloud service in particular is that the client receives very detailed and good information about the castings when we hand over our final documentation. They can enjoy professional overviews with clear and attractive charts.

Challenging and fun material
There’s no mistaking that Frida Mesch likes working on the West Link. When she started her internship a few years ago, no concrete had been poured in the Kallebäck area.

– It’s been great to see it all come together.

She describes concrete as a challenging material that can behave in different ways. It’s important to “keep your wits about you”, as Frida puts it, otherwise it’s easy to make mistakes and, for example, to end up with a cast that you have to repair.

– The big challenge is to get the perfect cast without a single air bubble. It is very difficult but at the same time a fun challenge.

– “I’m really keen to build my own house. If I had the money for it, I would start right away,” says Frida Mesch with a laugh.

Briefly about the West Link Project

The West Link is an approximately eight-kilometer double-track railway for commuter and regional trains in the Gothenburg area. More than six kilometers of railway tracks will run in a tunnel under central Gothenburg. In the north, the tracks go underground in the Gullbergsvass neighborhood (near Skansen Lejonet) to come up in the Kallebäck area south of Gothenburg. Three new stations will be built along the new underground route: Station Centralen, Station Haga and Station Korsvägen. Construction of the West Link started in 2018 and is originally scheduled for completion in 2030.