scholarly journals Plastic Optical Fibre Sensors for Structural Health Monitoring: A Review of Recent Progress

2009 ◽  
Vol 2009 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. S. C. Kuang ◽  
S. T. Quek ◽  
C. G. Koh ◽  
W. J. Cantwell ◽  
P. J. Scully

While a number of literature reviews have been published in recent times on the applications of optical fibre sensors in smart structures research, these have mainly focused on the use of conventional glass-based fibres. The availability of inexpensive, rugged, and large-core plastic-based optical fibres has resulted in growing interest amongst researchers in their use as low-cost sensors in a variety of areas including chemical sensing, biomedicine, and the measurement of a range of physical parameters. The sensing principles used in plastic optical fibres are often similar to those developed in glass-based fibres, but the advantages associated with plastic fibres render them attractive as an alternative to conventional glass fibres, and their ability to detect and measure physical parameters such as strain, stress, load, temperature, displacement, and pressure makes them suitable for structural health monitoring (SHM) applications. Increasingly their applications as sensors in the field of structural engineering are being studied and reported in literature. This article will provide a concise review of the applications of plastic optical fibre sensors for monitoring the integrity of engineering structures in the context of SHM.

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olubukola Rufai ◽  
Mayank Gautam ◽  
Prasad Potluri ◽  
Matthieu Gresil

Structural health monitoring is a fast growing area used to assess the state of various structures such as aircraft, building, bridge, wind turbine, pipe, automobile through appropriate data processing and interpretation. This article presents a novel technique of optimising the conventional optical fibres used for structural health monitoring, in order to improve their mechanical properties, and handling during the manufacturing process by micro-braiding the optical fibres. This study investigates and compares the tensile properties of the both micro-braided optical fibre and conventional optical fibres through uniaxial tensile tests. Experimental results show 85% improvement in strain at failure for the micro-braided optical fibre when compared to the optical fibres. Moreover, interfacial shear strength comparison, of the braiding yarn, between optical fibres and micro-braided optical fibre (carried out through micro-bond test) has also been conducted. In addition, the effect of embedding both micro-braided and conventional optical fibre in composite was also investigated by three-point bend test. Overall, the mechanical performance of the composite was not affected by the presence of micro-braided optical fibre. This article will also discuss the process and the advantage of micro-braided optical fibre for structural health monitoring.


Abstract. Ultrasonic waves, either bulk waves or guided waves, are commonly used for non-destructive evaluation, for example in structural health monitoring. Traditional sensors for detecting ultrasonic waves include metallic strain gauges and piezoelectric ceramics. Recently piezoresistive nanocomposites have emerged as a promising sensor with high sensing range. In this paper, a constriction-resistive based sensor made from a graphene reinforced PLA filament is developed using a fused deposition modelling 3D printing approach as a novel type of ultrasonic sensor for structural health monitoring purposes. The sensor is made of very low-cost and recyclable thermoplastic material, which is lightweight and can be either directly printed onto the surface of various engineering structures, or embedded into the interior of a structure via fused filament fabrication 3D printing. These characteristics make this sensor a promising candidate compared to the traditional sensors in detecting ultrasonic waves for structural health monitoring. The printed sensors can detect ultrasonic signals with frequencies around 200 kHz, with good signal-to-noise ratio and sensitivity. When deployed between two adjacent printed tracks , and exploiting a novel kissing-bond mechanism, the sensor is capable of detecting ultrasonic waves. Several confirmatory experiments were carried out on this printed sensor to validate the capability of the printed sensor for structural health monitoring.


Sensors ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (12) ◽  
pp. 4312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yunzhu Chen ◽  
Xingwei Xue

With the rapid development of the world’s transportation infrastructure, many long-span bridges were constructed in recent years, especially in China. However, these bridges are easily subjected to various damages due to dynamic loads (such as wind-, earthquake-, and vehicle-induced vibration) or environmental factors (such as corrosion). Therefore, structural health monitoring (SHM) is vital to guarantee the safety of bridges in their service lives. With its wide frequency response range, fast response, simple preparation process, ease of processing, low cost, and other advantages, the piezoelectric transducer is commonly employed for the SHM of bridges. This paper summarizes the application of piezoelectric materials for the SHM of bridges, including the monitoring of the concrete strength, bolt looseness, steel corrosion, and grouting density. For each problem, the application of piezoelectric materials in different research methods is described. The related data processing methods for four types of bridge detection are briefly summarized, and the principles of each method in practical application are listed. Finally, issues to be studied when using piezoelectric materials for monitoring are discussed, and future application prospects and development directions are presented.


Author(s):  
Milton Muñoz ◽  
Remigio Guevara ◽  
Santiago González ◽  
Juan Carlos Jiménez

This paper presents and evaluates a continuous recording system designed for a low-cost seismic station. The architecture has three main blocks. An accelerometer sensor based on MEMS technology (Microelectromechanical Systems), an SBC platform (Single Board Computer) with embedded Linux and a microcontroller device. In particular, the microcontroller represents the central component which operates as an intermediate agent to manage the communication between the accelerometer and the SBC block. This strategy allows the system for data acquisition in real time. On the other hand, the SBC platform is used for storing and processing data as well as in order to configure the remote communication with the station. This proposal is intended as a robust solution for structural health monitoring (i.e. in order to characterize the response of an infrastructure before, during and after a seismic event). The paper details the communication scheme between the system components, which has been minutely designed to ensure the samples are collected without information loss. Furthermore, for the experimental evaluation the station was located in the facilities on a relevant infrastructure, specifically a hydroelectric dam. The system operation was compared and verified with respect to a certified accelerograph station. Results prove that the continuous recording system operates successfully and allows for detecting seismic events according to requirements of structural health applications (i.e. detects events with a frequency of vibration less than 100 Hz). Specifically, through the system implemented it was possible to characterize the effect of a seismic event of 4 MD reported by the regional seismology network and with epicenter located about 30 Km of the hydroelectric dam. Particularly, the vibration frequencies detected on the infrastructure are in the range of 13 Hz and 29 Hz. Regarding the station performance, results from experiments reveals an average CPU load of 51%, consequently the processes configured on the SBC platform do not involve an overload. Finally, the average energy consumption of the station is close to 2.4 W, therefore autonomy provided by the backup system is aroud of 10 hours.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Mesquita ◽  
P. Antunes ◽  
A. A. Henriques ◽  
A. Arêde ◽  
P. S. André ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Optical systems are recognized to be an important tool for structural health monitoring, especially for real time safety assessment, due to simplified system configuration and low cost when compared to regular systems, namely electrical systems. This work aims to present a case study on structural health monitoring focused on reliability assessment and applying data collected by a simplified optical sensing system. This way, an elevated reinforced concrete water reservoir was instrumented with a bi-axial optical accelerometer and monitored since January 2014. Taking into account acceleration data, the natural frequencies and relative displacements were estimated. The reliability analysis was performed based on generalized extreme values distribution (GEV) and the results were employed to build a forecast of the reliability of the water elevated reservoir for the next 100 years. The results showed that the optical system combined with GEV analysis, implemented in this experimental work, can provide adequate data for structural reliability assessment.


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