Suvarna Garge (Editor)

Giatec Scientific

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Type
  
Private

Products
  
NDT devices Sensors

Giatec Scientific

Industry
  
Measuring and testing device manufacturing

Founded
  
2010; 7 years ago (2010)

Founders
  
Aali R. Alizadeh Pouria Ghods

Headquarters
  
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Giatec Scientific Inc. is a Canadian-based company with headquarters located in Ottawa, Ontario. It is a developer and manufacturer of nondestructive testing quality control and condition assessment devices for the construction industry.

Contents

History

Giatec Scientific Inc. was co-founded by Dr. Pouria Ghods of Carleton University and Dr. Aali R. Alizadeh of the University of Ottawa in September 2010. The pair began working with advisers at Invest Ottawa, who arranged sources, funding and ideas to bring Giatec's products to the market.

The company's first product was a sensor to detect corrosion speed in the rebar/steel inside concrete. Unlike other non-destructive testing methods available at the time, Giatec used mobile-based applications software and smart technology to collect and analyze data.

In 2012, Giatec became independent of Invest Ottawa. The company was selected as one of ten rising stars in Ottawa by the Regional Innovation Centre in 2012, and recognized as a rising star during Global Entrepreneurs Week Ottawa in 2012. That year, after the collapse of the Algo Centre Mall in Elliot Lake in 2012, Giatec's equipment was used in the forensic structural examination that was initiated as part of the public inquiry. In November 2016, Giatec received the BOBs Award for Best Performance in Exports.

Giatec continued its development of testing devices and sensors for the measurement of concrete permeability, electrical resistivity measurement of concrete, half-cell corrosion, corrosion rate, concrete temperature, and concrete maturity. In 2014, Giatec won the Rio Info 2013 Innovation Award, and in 2014, the company was included in the Ottawa Business Journal's annual list of "Startups to Watch".

Giatec also began to develop Internet of Things (IoT) applications for the construction industry through wireless concrete temperature and maturity sensors. In March 2015, the company released a new electrical resistivity monitoring device that collects data periodically and sends it directly to a smartphone through a downloadable application. In October 2016, Giatec released Smart Concrete, a new IoT-based value-added solution for ready-mix concrete producers.

Products

The Giatec product range of nondestructive testing devices can be divided into three areas: laboratory devices, which include products that can be used to measure the permeability of concrete specimens; hand-held portable field inspection devices that can be used to conduct in-situ condition assessment of concrete structures such as bridges; and embedded wireless sensors for real-time monitoring of concrete properties such as temperature, humidity, maturity, and strength.

These devices collect several types of data:

  • Corrosion Mapping: XCell and iCor together collect data about corrosion in rebar/steel in the concrete structure, and then transmit the data using and Android-based smartphone or tablet application to a remote location for analysis.
  • Chloride Permeability: the Perma2 device carries out the Rapid Chloride Permeability (RCP) test, passing an electrical charge through concrete to determine its ability to resist chloride ion penetration.
  • Electrical Resistivity: Giatec manufactures three testing devices which measure electrical resistivity for quality control, crack detection, and the setting time of fresh concrete. One of these is the Smartbox, a compact wireless sensor that sends data to a handheld Android Smartphone/tablet. The other two are laboratory test devices for concrete electrical resistance measurement, RCON and Surf.
  • References

    Giatec Scientific Wikipedia