Methods and systems relating to quality control of construction materials

The method according to claim 13, wherein

• the characteristic of the construction material is a slump of the construction material and the construction material is concrete;
• the process comprises:
• providing a drum containing a load of concrete;
• providing a hydraulic pressure sensor measuring pressure of a hydraulic system associated with the drum;
• providing a sensor to monitor an angular velocity of the drum;
• monitoring the hydraulic pressure of the hydraulic system over a range of angular velocities with the drum empty;
• monitoring the hydraulic pressure of the hydraulic system over a range of angular velocities with a load of concrete within the drum;
• determining in dependence upon the difference in hydraulic pressures between the drum empty and loaded with concrete over the range of angular velocities and the range of angular velocities a shear rate and a shear stress applied to the concrete;
• determining a yield stress of the concrete from the shear rate and a shear stress;
• and
• determining in dependence upon the yield stress of the concrete the slump of the concrete.

The method according to claim 13, wherein

• the characteristic of the construction material is a size of a concrete load;
• the process comprises:
• providing a drum containing the load of concrete;
• providing a hydraulic pressure sensor measuring pressure of a hydraulic system associated with the drum;
• providing a sensor to monitor an angular velocity of the drum;
• monitoring the hydraulic pressure of the hydraulic system over a range of angular velocities with the drum empty;
• monitoring the hydraulic pressure of the hydraulic system over a range of angular velocities with a load of concrete within the drum;
• determining in dependence upon the hydraulic pressures over the range of angular velocities when the drum is empty and the range of angular velocities a system efficiency value;
• and
• determining in dependence upon the hydraulic pressures over the range of angular velocities when the drum is loaded, the range of angular velocities and the system efficiency value the size of the concrete load.

The method according to claim 13, wherein

• the characteristic of the construction material is at least one of a flowability measurement or a slump measurement of the construction material;
• the process comprises:
• establishing a first pressure measurement from a first diaphragm based pressure sensor in contact with a column of a construction material at a first position with respect to the column of the construction material;
• establishing a second pressure measurement from a second diaphragm based pressure sensor in contact with a column of a construction material at a second position with respect to the column of the construction material;
• establishing a pressure differential in dependence upon the first pressure measurement and the second pressure measurement;
• establishing a vertical separation between the first diaphragm based pressure sensor and the second diaphragm based pressure sensor;
• and
• establishing the at least one of the flowability measurement or the slump measurement of the construction material.

The method according to claim 13, wherein

• the characteristic of the construction material is a measure of temperature increase of a body of liquid concrete at a plurality of points and a plurality of time;
• the process comprises:
• establishing a model comprising a formwork and a body of liquid concrete poured into the formwork;
• executing a simulation process upon the model over a period of time to establish the measure of temperature increase of the body of liquid concrete at the plurality of points and the plurality of time;
• and
• the simulation process has been correlated to a plurality of physical structures which have been modelled with the simulation process.

A method comprising:

• establishing an initial set of documents;
• labelling each document of the set of documents to identify within that document of the set of documents a plurality of regions within the document of the set of documents containing content of interest;
• establishing a training set of documents from the labelled set of documents;
• employing at least one of a machine learning (ML) based rule generator and an artificial intelligence (AI) based rule generator upon the training set of documents to generate a set of rules for extracting content in dependence upon the labelled content in each document of the training set of documents;
• and
• storing the rules within the database.

The method according to claim 13, wherein

• the characteristic of the construction material is at least one of a porosity of a cement, a time of set of the at least one of a cement paste and a mortar and a compressive strength of the at least one of the cement and the mortar;
• the process comprises:
• performing an electrical impedance measurement of at least one of the cement and the mortar with a sensor embedded within performing a permittivity measurement of the at least one of the cement and the mortar with the sensor;
• and
• determining in dependence upon the electrical impedance measurement and the permittivity measurement the at least one of the porosity of the cement, the time of set of the at least one of the cement paste and the mortar and the compressive strength of the at least one of the cement and the mortar.