Given that our “old” vibration generator was – after around three decades – no longer exactly up-to-date it was decided to purchase a new, state-of-the-art machine. After lengthy consideration and the weighing up of various alternatives we opted for a Nomad 65 Neo vibration generator from the company Sercel. We acquired the new VibroScan® in May 2017. After our colleagues Benjamin Ofner, Kristof Weber and Michael Österreicher had been fully trained, the vehicle was delivered to Austria at the end of July. With a total mass of 30 t it is around twice as heavy as the former vibration generator and the total excitation force is about 277 kN, which is around four times the force of our old machine. The excitation frequency range of 5–250 Hz is significantly wider than the range of 8–120 Hz offered by the former device. We can also proudly report on the first use of the new VibroScan® in the field within the Koralmbahn project in which the vibrations caused by the railway traffic once the line goes into operation were simulated in order to estimate the expected immissions (vibration and re-radiated noise). The equipment has already been scheduled for further use in late 2017 and early 2018. The new VibroScan® also enables us to compete at the European scale: we have already had enquiries from Switzerland and Italy. Bearing this in mind, we are hopeful that our new vibration generator can also look forward to 30 years full of interesting deployments.
The name VibroScan® is an internationally registered trademark of iC (No. 697457).