Methods for Structural Health Monitoring Based on Long-Gauge and Distributed Fiber Optic Sensors

Abstract

Construction, revitalization, preservation and maintenance of resilient and sustainable civil structures and infrastructure represent important challenges for society of 21st century. Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is emerging branch of engineering which can greatly assist in meeting these challenges by providing in-time actionable information on structural health condition and performance. Fiber Optic Sensors (FOS) offer two unique strain sensing tools for SHM: long-gauge sensors and truly distributed sensors. These FOS enable two novel SHM methods (respectively): global structural monitoring and integrity monitoring. The aim of this tutorial is to present commercially available long-gauge and distributed FOS, to briefly introduce theory behind the two novel methods enabled by FOS, and to demonstrate the effectiveness of the methods through real-life applications.