<title>Application of smart materials and systems to long-term bridge health monitoring</title>

Abstract

An efficient monitoring system is essential to avoid catastrophic structural failure and reduce retrofit cost on structures at aging time. The objective of this paper is to develop a diagnostic system to monitor structural integrity of bridge by stain sensing using fiber optic sensor (FOS). A number of laboratory tests were carried out in the process of this research for steel and concrete members with attached and embedded type fiber optic sensors. Strain data obtained from cracked area as an estimation of crack propagation and survivability performance of fiber optic sensor due to cyclic loading experience are concerned. Electrical strain gages co- located with fiber optic sensor to verify functioning of fiber optic sensor and finally compared results obtained from both sensors with numerical calculations. Our research results revealed that, fiber optic sensor and strain gage respond same way at transition zone and significant variation in strain response observed when crack propagates from notch tips. In this series of investigation by bringing new experimental system about fatigue crack evaluation and wireless health monitoring we could develop smart system to apply to field assessment.© (2000) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.