title: Load Measurement on Foundations of Rockfall Protection Systems.
abstract: Rockfall protection barriers are connected to the ground using steel cables fixed with anchors and foundations for the steel posts. It is common practice to measure the forces in the cables, while to date measurements of forces in the foundations have been inadequately resolved. An overview is presented of existing methods to measure the loads on the post foundations of rockfall protection barriers. Addressing some of the inadequacies of existing approaches, a novel sensor unit is presented that is able to capture the forces acting on post foundations in all six degrees of freedom. The sensor unit consists of four triaxial force sensors placed between two steel plates. To correctly convert the measurements into the directional forces acting on the foundation a special in-situ calibration procedure is proposed that delivers a corresponding conversion matrix.
authors: WSL Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Zürcherstr. 111, 8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland. volkwein@wsl.ch.
authors: Axel
authors: A
authors: Volkwein
authors: WSL Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Zürcherstr. 111, 8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland. peter.kummer9@gmail.com.
authors: Peter
authors: P
authors: Kummer
authors: Geobrugg AG, Aachstr. 11, 8590 Romanshorn, Switzerland. Hueseyin.Bitnel@geobrugg.com.
authors: Hueseyin
authors: H
authors: Bitnel
authors: Institute of Forensic Medicine, Bühlstrasse 20, 3012 Bern, Switzerland. Lorenzo.Campana@irm.unibe.ch.
authors: Lorenzo
authors: L
authors: Campana
keywords: foundation; net barrier; post; protection systems; rockfall; testing