Safewall Barricades is a wireless shotcrete barricade strength monitoring system that replaces conservative time-based wait periods with embedded IoT sensors and real-time maturity analytics. It gives engineering teams the data to know exactly when a barricade wall has reached design strength, so paste plug pours can begin with confidence rather than guesswork.
The Problem
Paste backfill barricades are critical engineered structures in underground hardrock stopes. Before paste filling can commence, the shotcrete barricade must develop sufficient compressive strength to safely withstand the hydrostatic pressure of the incoming paste. Determining precisely when the barricade has reached that threshold is the bottleneck.
The conventional approach relies on conservative time-based wait periods derived from experience and typical mix designs. There is no real-time visibility into what is happening inside the curing shotcrete. The barricade sits idle, and with it, the entire paste fill schedule stalls. Every hour of unnecessary waiting cascades through the mine plan, delaying stope turnaround and tying up equipment, labour, and infrastructure.
Manual testing options are limited. Physical inspection requires personnel to access the barricade location underground, and any testing provides only a point-in-time, surface-level snapshot. It cannot characterise the full thermal profile across the barricade wall, and it cannot detect localised areas of uneven curing that may indicate structural weakness. There is no continuous record, no trend data, and no ability to audit the decision after the fact.
The operational cost is significant. Without measured data, operations adopt excessive safety margins. Barricades are routinely left far longer than necessary, and paste fill schedules back up behind the bottleneck. In high-throughput operations, this lost time directly translates to reduced ore recovery and increased production costs.
The Solution
Safewall Barricades uses a three-line sensor matrix that is attached to the barricade wall before the shotcrete sets. The sensor lines map temperature distribution across the full structure, capturing the exothermic heat generated during cement hydration. Data is transmitted wirelessly via RF to an edge gateway positioned outside the fill zone, requiring no cabling or infrastructure modification. The cloud platform applies the maturity method (ASTM C1074) to calculate real-time compressive strength from the temperature-time history, calibrated against the site’s specific mix design. When the barricade reaches the configured design strength threshold, engineers can approve pour commencement remotely via the IndustryOS dashboard with full confidence in the underlying data.
Key Capabilities
Deployment
Safewall Barricades is supplied as a ready-to-install kit. Sensor lines are attached to the barricade wall before the shotcrete sets, and the connectivity and power box is positioned outside the fill zone. No drilling, no infrastructure modification, and no specialist training required. The edge gateway is a portable unit that receives RF data and connects to the mine’s existing Wi-Fi network. Deployment integrates into the normal barricade construction workflow with no additional time overhead.