Construcciones Yamaro: NAORA takes live concrete monitoring beyond the sensor
NAORA gives project teams visibility into concrete performance, turning live field data into evidence that supports confident decisions.
Concrete programs have traditionally relied on off-site test results to confirm when the next stage of work can begin. Cylinders are cast, transported, cured and tested away from the element, with results often returning after the concrete in place has reached strength.
When confirmation is delayed, contractors may have to hold back stripping, stressing, loading or the next sequence of work, even when the concrete in place may already be ready.
As an approved Converge delivery partner operating across Australia, NAORA brings in-situ monitoring into the concrete program and quality assurance (QA) process. Converge builds real-time concrete monitoring technology and software to optimise concrete operations, while NAORA manages planning, sensor placement, installation, monitoring, threshold alerts and engineer-reviewed QA reporting.
The result isn’t just live concrete data, but a traceable record within the project’s existing approval process. Sensors alone don’t change how a project runs; the value comes from turning data into evidence engineers, contractors and clients can use.
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Carley Phillips, general manager at NAORA, says all engineering structural sign-off stays with the project’s structural engineer, exactly where it belongs.
“The builder isn’t buying hardware and a dashboard,” she says. “They’re buying a managed capability that slots into their existing QA and approval framework without disturbing it.”
That managed-service approach makes the technology usable on site. A sensor reading has limited use unless the sensor is correctly placed, calibrated to the mix, monitored through curing and reported in a form project teams can rely on.
NAORA manages that pathway, working with the site team before the pour, agreeing sensor placement against release activities, and setting thresholds with the project engineer so monitoring is tied to construction requirements.
“On a typical deployment, we agree the project’s engineering and construction milestones before the pour,” says Phillips. “As the concrete reaches those agreed thresholds, the right people are notified with engineering evidence to support the next decision. It shortens an existing workflow – it doesn’t create a new one. Site teams don’t want another dashboard. They want one less thing to chase.”
The service is based on the relationship between temperature, time and strength gain. Converge sensors record temperature within the concrete, while software converts that history into a strength estimate using the Maturity Method, calibrated against the project’s concrete mix.
Jeremy Pownall, head of APAC at Converge, says advances in smartphones, cloud platforms, memory and data transmission have made the established methodology easier to apply in real time.
For contractors, he says the difference is the amount and timing of information available between formal test results. Instead of waiting for a single result from a sample, the project team receives repeated updates from the concrete in place.
“A break test will give you one data point,” says Pownall. “A sensor will give you an update more than 70 times a day.”
For Dr Mohammad Siahkouhi, a postdoctoral fellow at Western Sydney University’s Centre for Infrastructure Engineering, the engineering value isn’t the sensor itself but what it records. Speaking as an independent researcher, he says lab specimens and in-situ elements are exposed to different conditions, particularly during early-age curing, when heat, moisture, ambient temperature, volume and element thickness can influence performance.
“Lab specimens are cured under controlled, uniform conditions, but the concrete in the actual structure experiences the real thermal and moisture environment of that specific pour,” says Dr Siahkouhi. “Real-time in-situ sensing captures that specific thermal and maturity history, so it reflects the concrete that’s going into service, not a proxy for it.”
That doesn’t mean live monitoring replaces traditional testing. Dr Siahkouhi says cylinder breaks remain the standards-referenced compliance measure, while live maturity-based data shows how the structure is tracking between lab results.
“The most defensible approach is to use live data to guide day-to-day sequencing decisions and flag anomalies early, while still relying on standard testing to make the design compliance call,” he says.
A site-based record becomes useful when decisions need to move faster than traditional test results. Without evidence that the concrete has reached the required threshold, ready formwork, booked cranes, crews and follow-on activities can stall. Earlier evidence can support crane utilisation, labour efficiency and program certainty across repeated pours.
On the Fremantle Traffic Bridge replacement in Western Australia – being delivered by the Fremantle Bridges Alliance, comprising Arup, WSP and Laing O’Rourke – the technology was deployed across precast and in-situ works. Precast operations saved up to two hours per day in actionable strength decisions and a further two hours per day in administration, while in-situ works saved six to eight hours per cycle.
Zane Farmer, project engineer at Laing O’Rourke, says continuous thermal monitoring also allowed the team to adjust insulation in real time, avoiding thermal non-conformances rather than discovering them after the fact.
The North East Link’s SEM ventilation tunnel in Victoria shows how the same approach can support lower-carbon concrete.
Susan Lim, former site engineer on the project, says the team used a 50 per cent cement replacement mix – a specification that would traditionally add days to the cycle. Real-time strength data brought formwork removal forward by 24 hours on that mix compared to waiting for cylinder crushes.
“That second number is the one that should stop project teams in their tracks,” says Phillips. “It isn’t just a time saving. It’s the reason the low-carbon mix was viable at all. Low-carbon concrete is coming whether you’re ready or not. The question is whether you’ll know how it’s curing.”
Dr Siahkouhi says lower-carbon mixes can behave differently during hydration, with strength-gain and heat-development curves that may not match conventional assumptions.
“Site teams need real performance data for these mixes in real conditions to understand and trust how they behave, rather than importing assumptions from a materially different concrete type,” he says. “This is especially important during the industry’s transition period, when confidence in newer mixes needs to be earned with evidence.”
That evidence has to withstand review. Engineers need to know what was measured, where, when and how the result relates to the activity being assessed. NAORA’s independent, engineer-reviewed reporting is designed to provide that chain of evidence.
“It gives a defensible record of what the concrete actually did, engineer-reviewed, tied to specific locations with photos and documentation,” says Phillips. “Contractors and clients stop debating and start referencing, and if a question ever lands on someone’s desk months later – a defect claim, an audit, a dispute – the record does the work.”
Looking forward, Dr Siahkouhi says real-time monitoring is likely to shift from a “nice-to-have” QA add-on to a standard part of how concrete performance is verified and documented.
“As digital twin and BIM-based delivery models mature, this kind of sensor data becomes a natural input feeding directly into project records, supporting more responsive sequencing decisions and building a verified performance history for the structure that persists well beyond handover into long-term asset management,” he says. “This supports structural safety and contributes to sustainability in the construction industry by extending the lifespan of concrete structures.”
Phillips says the next step is not just whether project teams use the technology, but how well they adopt it.
“The technology has been proven on major Australian infrastructure,” she says. “The differentiator now is purely how well you adopt it. In three years, sensor-based curing will be the tender expectation. The only choice teams are really making right now is whether they set that standard or wait to meet it.”
For contractors, the opportunity is to make concrete performance visible early enough, documented clearly enough and integrated closely enough to support the next stage of work with evidence from the structure itself.
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