A Uniform Strain Transfer Scheme for Accurate Distributed Optical Fiber Strain Measurements in Civil Structures

Yang Du,Jie Huang,Yiyang Zhuang,Chen Zhu,Rex Gerald,Yizheng Chen

doi:10.3390/inventions3020030

Abstract

We report a screw-like package design for an embeddable distributed optical fiber strain sensor for civil engineering applications. The screw-like structure is the exterior support for an optical fiber sensor. The bare optical fiber is embedded and secured in a longitudinal groove of the screw-like package using a rigid adhesive. Our packaging scheme prevents damage to the bare optical fiber and ensures that the packaged sensor is accurately and optimally sensing strain fields in civil structures. Moreover, our screw-like design has an equal area in a cross-section perpendicular to and along the screw axis, so strain field distributions are metered faithfully along the length of the embedded optical fiber. Our novel screw-like package optical fiber sensor, interfaced to a Rayleigh scattering-based optical frequency domain reflectometer system enables undistorted, accurate, robust, and spatially-distributed strain measurements in bridges, tunnels, pipelines, buildings, etc. along structural dimensions extending from centimeters to kilometers.

Highlights

It is essential for civil engineering structures to be reliable and durable
Our robust packaging scheme provides sufficient protection to bare optical fibers from breakage, eliminates sliding between the plastic screw-like package structure and the host optical fiber, In this paper, we report for the first time to our knowledge, a novel screw-like package design and the packaged accurately optimally transfers strain civil structures to the for use by sensor an embeddable sensorand for civil engineering applications thatfields affordsfrom a protective feature, eliminates sliding, and provides an inherently uniform strain transfer function
We report a screw-like package structure design used for embedding an optical fiber sensor for distributed strain measurements in civil engineering structures with fine and coarse grain compositions

Summary

Introduction

It is essential for civil engineering structures to be reliable and durable. After years of service, many structures show severe deterioration. The condition of civil structures should be monitored carefully and nondestructively to confirm that their integrity is maintained and to enable that specific damage is identified and quantified at the earliest stages of deterioration so that repairs can be implemented quickly and cost-effectively. It is, important to accurately and autonomously detect strain fields which occur in civil engineering structures such as buildings, skyscrapers, dams, power plants, etc. To identify deterioration and impact-force damages, structural health monitoring (SHM) techniques that are reliable, cost-effective and easy to implement are desired

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion