OSLO: Elop AS has launched the world’s first rolling ultrasound scanner for commercial sale, a news release said.
“For our shareholders, today’s commercial launch means that Elop’s gateway to revenues has opened,” says Kjersti Kanne, CEO of Elop.
“The rolling ultrasound scanner – named Elop Insight – enables smart and unparalleled efficiency of scanning for a large variety of concrete structures, such as bridges, buildings, dams and tunnels. It can change how infrastructure owners keep concrete structures safe, sustainable and financially viable,” adds Kanne.
With a vision of providing asset owners with solutions that improve safety, extend asset lifetime, and improve lifecycle performance and environmental footprint, Elop has since 2013 developed and patented the unique ultrasound technology solution for inspection and analysis of concrete infrastructure.
Concrete is the world’s most used construction material, but maintenance of critical concrete infrastructure is a growing concern, with aging structures driving up the maintenance costs. Moreover, with 8 percent of the world’s CO2 coming from its production process, concrete is a major contributor to current environmental challenges.
The rolling Elop Insight ultrasound scanner immediately helps to identify issues that owners of concrete infrastructure must address.
It is designed to quickly inspect and assess large surface areas. The live 3D visualisation of the concrete structure on the scanner screen, provides a real-time interpretation of the concrete’s internal state, including elements and defects such as cracks, air pockets, voids and delamination. and rebars.
“Our ultrasound scanner helps to collect data and visualises it in real time. This allows the user or the asset owner to make more informed decisions and priorities, for optimised and smarter maintenance while contributing towards making infrastructure safer,” says Kjersti Kanne.
The major long-term value for Elop, asset owners and society as a whole, is the data gathering that enables long term monitoring of critical infrastructure. The latter is a vehicle to transform data into unique insight that enables optimised asset management for safer and greener constructions.
By coupling this unique data insight with cloud-based systems, Elop can provide the worldwide construction industry and infrastructure owners with richer and more insightful data than before.
At first, Elop will primarily target the Nordic and European market, with its ultrasound technology. Among the companies that have expressed an interest in the technology are inspection companies, contractors and consulting engineers.
“We are being contacted by companies from across the globe that see the large benefits our technology offers. For Covid-19 reasons we will prioritise potential customers in Norway and the Nordics first, but this is a technology with global potential as concrete is utilised as building material worldwide,” says Kjersti Kanne.
Infrastructure such as bridges, tunnels and large buildings are usually made of reinforced concrete, which needs regular inspection to ensure structural integrity and safety. The inherent global market potential within preventive maintenance and structural health monitoring is in excess of USD 35 billion annually.
Over the next couple of years, Elop will therefore develop the foundation for a structural health monitoring system that allows an overview of assets’ condition and continuous monitoring of infrastructure health.
“Through the combination of data sources and artificial intelligence, we may over time analyse and predict when, where and how maintenance on concrete infrastructure is required. This could lead to billions of dollars in savings annually, while also improving safety and reducing the environmental footprint of concrete infrastructure,” says Kjersti Kanne.
“There is a strong underlying logic for preventive maintenance and smart inspection to improve asset integrity and prolonged lifetime. We believe that Elop Insight could be an enabler to unlock significant value for all stakeholders,” concludes Kanne.
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