M6 Junction 10
Walsall Council is working in partnership with Highways England to improve Junction 10 of the M6.
As a busy route between Walsall and Wolverhampton, the junction is often heavily congested. This impacts on local residents and businesses, and has reduced the attractiveness of the local area for investment, including the nearby Black Country Enterprise Zone.
Plans include the widening and redevelopment of two bridges and improvement of the junction.
Traffic management was required to access the locations and potential weather effects on the slopes could have made in-situ data reading difficult. As the piezometer installation was split across both sides of the carriageway, data download could also have been very time-consuming.
Selection of a wireless system avoided any impact from these site-specific problems. The client was impressed with the range of the system even when the nodes were housed inside locked upright security covers.
Project Summary
- Name
- M6 Junction 10
- Location
- UK
- Date
- November 2017
- Client
- Walsall Council
- Contractor
- Kier Highways
- Instrumentation Specialist
- Geotechnical Engineering Limited
Monitoring
Four boreholes were drilled on steep embankments using a specialist slope drilling rig. A VW piezometer was installed in each borehole.
Due to the angle of the embankments, access to the piezometers and dataloggers was impractical and could have been dangerous and so each piezometer was connected to a single channel VW Wi-SOS 480 Node, housed in an upright cover to provide protection.
Each node was connected to a solar-powered Wi-SOS 480 Gateway. The nodes were located up to 300m from the gateway through thick foliage and a beside a busy motorway. Some nodes were obscured by the bridge.
Data was sent remotely to the Wi-SOS 480 web portal via the GPRS connected gateway. Data was accessed remotely by both the client and customer.
The client was happy with the stability and ease of set up of the wireless system. Data was sent reliably.
