A measured impact at Seawork
A diagram of the gSense II and sensor links.
Seawork is a valuable showcase for Ambex, who say that this year, one product in particular was of especial interest to the RNLI and the Ministry of Defence as well as a number of European RIB builders. This was the latest gSense II, a shock and impact measuring device designed specifically for high speed military and commercial vessels.
This device helps the helmsman to know how close he is getting to these limits – well before the boat or crew are pushed over them.
‘Human factors monitoring’ is a hot topic,’ says William Smith. Driving this is both broadening awareness and legislation: he explains, ‘A combination of EU directives and MCA guidance notes set limits to the amount of vibration (including shock and impact) to which workers can be exposed. There are two levels defined: an 'action value' - above which an employer must provide health surveillance and introduce controls to reduce risk, and a 'limit value' - above which immediate action to reduce exposure must be taken.’
Therefore a device which provides the helmsman with onboard data in real time, and allows a continuous assessment of the forces being experienced by the vessel and personnel aboard is invaluable.
The gSense II also allows owners and operators to oversee the operating parameters of the vessel, which all adds to improving the structural life of the boat itself as well as reducing maintenance downtime, as the effects of repeated impact and acceleration can be analysed and monitored ashore on a regular basis using the ShockView software, a PC based analysis programme. Over a year’s worth of data can be stored within the machine for shore side analysis using Shockview.
The unit measures acceleration/deceleration across the X, Y and Z axes as standard, although this can be expanded with the addition of optional external sensors which can be located at various additional locations through-out the vessel and even onto shock-mitigating seats to measure the actual human factors data or mounted onto a vessel section to get a more detailed picture. Installation is simplicity itself – simply mount the display and apply power.
The unit also records the GPS information including date, time, course, speed and position in addition to acceleration data. This provides a complete passage profile for accident investigations, warranty claim reports or simply for later analysis – although, for military ops, GPS recording can be disabled if required.
The interfaces have NMEA capability, and also have a CAN Bus option to interface with CAN based machinery systems.
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