Polymer Optical Fiber Sensors in Structural Health Monitoring

Abstract

This chapter summarizes the recent development in the relatively new and emerging field of structural health monitoring using polymer optical fiber (POF) sensors, also referred to as plastic optical fiber sensors. The extraordinary mechanical properties of POF in terms of strainability and ruggedness allows for measurement applications that could not or only insufficiently be solved with existing techniques. A great number of measurement parameters relevant for structural health monitoring applications, such as strain, displacement, crack width, vibrations or moisture can be measured with POF sensors. Numerous sensing principles have been proposed during the last 20 years and the most promising techniques and developments for SHM will be introduced. The focus is on the measurement of physical quantities for early damage detection and propagation, structural surveillance and analysis of dynamic processes.