STUDY OF FIBER OPTIC SENSOR USING CONCRETE BEAMS

Sabih Ahmad, Muddassir Umer Rizvi, Syed Mohd. Ashraf Husain, Abdullah Anwar

Abstract: Monitoring of important structures throughout its working life is normally needed to ensure its performance under expected applied loads. This usually involves investigation of cracking and damage due to applied loads, corrosion of steel, failure of bonds, excessive strain in concrete and reinforcing bars, critical deflection etc. The conventional techniques such as strain gauges, vibrating wires strain translucers, etc. have their own limitations. These sensors may not be functional and effective sensor throughout the life of structures. This being the position, the need of development of effective senor was being felt quite long. In recent years fiber optic based sensors have attracted considerable interest as non destructive structural health monitoring technique. In this research embedded fiber optic sensors are developed to monitor reinforced concrete beams. Embedded fiber optic sensor responded very well under the applied loads and any change in the intensity of light can be considered as a warning even before the cracks are visible on the outer surface. This characteristic of embedded fiber optic sensors can be used as a crack detection tools.

Keywords: Crack detection, fiber optic sensors, monitoring, smart structures.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2014.0308010