At the North Sea Terminal, the first five bollard monitors have been installed, and five more are expected shortly, the company said in its statement.

There are some 120.6km of quay walls and 7,000 mooring posts and bollards in the port of Antwerp. When mooring up, this is where ships tie their ropes. This way, during loading and unloading, ships do not move around.

The ropes of large seagoing vessels exert an overwhelming tractive force on the mooring posts and bollards in windy or stormy conditions.

Bollards, in this regard, are more sensitive than mooring masts with their bolt or anchor links. There is a risk that a ship might float away or that individuals would be harmed if such a bollard were to come loose.

Port of Antwerp launched a call in 2020 to devise a digital device for this purpose in order to test the tension in the bolt attachment of bollards and to warn whether a bollard is in danger of falling loose or breaking. " The Bollard Monitor" by the Brussels technology company Zensor was selected as the winner out of the five entries.

The Bollard Monitor consists of two interconnected sensors that measure the variations in stress and tension of the mounting system. The device sends the information, which is permanently registered, every 15 minutes via a wireless connection and visualizes it via a dashboard. This information will help to optimize the maintenance work of the bollards by the operational department.

Maritime Business World