GEOKON: Advanced Monitoring Solutions for Civil Engineering and Mining Infrastructure

About GEOKON

GEOKON, a 100% employee-owned company located in Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA, operates on a worldwide basis through a network of regional sales representatives and affiliated agencies. GEOKON was founded in 1979 and currently has more than 160 employees. GEOKON is a recognized world leader in the manufacture of geotechnical and structural instrumentation due to our quality, responsive customer service and industry-leading designs. Our broad range of geotechnical instrumentation is manufactured at our factory in the USA, by a staff of trained, qualified and experienced machinists and assemblers. In particular, GEOKON, through innovation and experience, has developed a line of vibrating wire sensors unsurpassed anywhere in the world. These highly reliable devices have contributed in no small way to the growing worldwide acceptance of vibrating wire as the most suitable technology for geotechnical applications.

GEOKON has a reputation for high quality instrumentation and data loggers. We provide our customers with the highest quality products and services. GEOKON has been awarded ISO 9001:2015 registration from both ANSI・ANAB, USA and UKAS of Great Britain.The GEOKON calibration program complies with, and is audited to, the ANSI/NCSL Z540-1 Calibration Laboratory and Measuring and Test Equipment General Requirements. In addition, all primary calibration standards are traceable to the United States Department of Commerce, National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST), in Washington, DC, and are calibrated by laboratories with ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation. GEOKON is a qualified supplier for US Nuclear Facilities in accordance with the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)/Nuclear Quality Assurance (NQA)-1, Quality Assurance Program Requirements. The entire GEOKON product line has achieved the Russian GOST certification for product safety and the GOST metrological certification.

GEOKON’s Products

Instruments manufactured by GEOKON are used primarily for monitoring the safety and stability of civil and mining structures such as earth dams, concrete dams, tunnels, mine openings, foundations, piles, embankments, retaining walls, slopes, subway systems, underground powerhouses, bridges, culverts, pipelines, shafts, slurry wall excavations, braced excavations, tiebacks, nuclear waste repositories, ground water remediation schemes and the like. GEOKON manufactures a complete line of geotechnical instruments including extensometers, piezometers, strain gages, crackmeters, jointmeters, load cells, settlement sensors, pressure cells, inclinometers and dataloggers and many other custom items made to order.

The products section of the GEOKON website (https://www.geokon.com/Products) provides a brief description of the standard GEOKON product lines.

The company also has a full-color instrumentation catalog containing the primary GEOKON product lines (https://www.geokon.com/content/datasheets/GEOKON-Instrumentation-Catalog.pdf).

Data sheets (https://www.geokon.com/Data-Sheets) and instruction manuals (https://www.geokon.com/Manuals) with detailed information about each product are also available.

If standard products do not meet specific needs, members of the experienced staff are ready to work with clients to produce custom instrumentation for special applications (https://www.geokon.com/Custom-Instrumentation).

Bridge structures in many countries around the world have used GEOKON sensors for measuring key parameters such as strain, displacement, force, temperature, inclination, alignment and settlement. Sensors are installed permanently for long-term health monitoring, temporarily for load testing and/or to ensure safe working conditions during repair or strengthening. Internet-accessible data acquisition systems ensure that any significant change in the condition or behavior of the structure is logged, reported and efficiently monitored.

Mines in many countries throughout the world, have used GEOKON instruments to monitor the stability of underground openings or pit slopes. Of particular note is a full-scale, mine-wide monitoring system installed at J.M. Asbestos, Quebec to monitor the safety of the steep hanging wall as the pit was deepened.

GEOKON instruments have been used to monitor and analyze critical elements of numerous dams throughout the world. Dams of any kind can benefit from instrumentation — including concrete, rollcrete, RCC and earth. GEOKON instruments are used in the dams of USA, China, Spain, South Africa, Brazil, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Colombia, New Zealand, Kenya, Pakistan, Algeria, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Australia.

Many tunnels and subway systems in major cities around the world have used GEOKON instruments. GEOKON is a specialist in the supply of instruments for the NATM method of tunnel support. In addition to almost all major cities in the USA, we have instrumented subway systems in Seoul, Taipei, Guangzhou, Istanbul, Hong Kong, Singapore and London. We also have instruments in the Channel Tunnel.

The construction (staged or surcharged) of highway embankments and levees often require instrumentation to monitor the progress of consolidation and to determine whether the embankment is stable. Instrumentation can also be utilized to monitor the effectiveness of vertical drains used to accelerate consolidation in embankment construction. GEOKON piezometers, settlement systems, extensometers and inclinometers are among the most common types of instrument used for embankment monitoring.

Deep foundations and excavations in urban environments require extensive monitoring to ensure their stability and to verify that nearby structures are not adversely affected. Typical excavation and/or foundation-related projects may require instrumentation for the walls (slurry walls and tiebacks), bracing (cross-lot struts), and/or the underlying ground or adjacent structures and utilities. Many major cities throughout the world including New York, Boston, Kuala Lumpur and Berlin have used GEOKON instruments in these situations.

GEOKON is a leader in pile testing instrumentation — both steel and concrete, driven or cast-in-place. Many important projects utilizing coffer dams and sheet piling have been instrumented, plus pilings on foundations of major buildings in cities throughout the world. The Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia, among the tallest buildings in the world, uses GEOKON gauges.

Careful monitoring and examination of slopes for failure warning signs is critical for protecting people and / or facilities down slope. The type of instruments selected for any monitoring program will depend upon the geology of the soil or rock mass and the problems to be monitored but may include Extensometers capable of measuring rock mass displacements, Piezometers for monitoring groundwater parameters, Crackmeters for measuring changes in crack width, and Inclinometers to locate and monitor acceleration (or deceleration) of shear zones.

GEOKON offers a wide variety of options for monitoring groundwater, lake and stream levels. Products range from simple standpipe piezometers and water level meters to downhole water level loggers and pressure transducers connected to dataloggers for pump tests and real time monitoring. Sensors for measurements in streams and weirs are also available, along with low-power data acquisition systems to wirelessly collect data from many sensors spread over a wide area.

The effectiveness of geogrid reinforcements can be monitored using displacement transducers attached to the grid with requisite clamps. Networks of such transducers, connected to data acquisition systems, can help identify areas of subsidence and forewarn of impending failures. As geogrids are generally designed to accommodate high strains, it is important to select transducers with appropriate range and optimum sensitivity, and the clamps which attach the transducers should be designed such that they do not weaken (or stiffen) the grid. Cover plates are used to protect the transducers from overlying aggregate and fill. Horizontal extensometers, pressure cells and settlement profilers are also commonly used in reinforced embankment constructions.

Other typical applications of GEOKON instrumentation and data loggers include, wind turbines, pipelines, landfills, and nuclear waste repositories.