Advances on On-Line Bridge Seismic and Structural Health Monitoring Using Fiber Optic Sensing Technology

Owners must manage and ensure the safety of their bridges even as their use might extend well beyond their original design lifetime. Traditionally, most structures rely on strict maintenance procedures, visual inspections, and very few sensors. However, maintenance operations are expensive; visual inspections can miss critical problems; and conventional sensors often fail in harsh environments. Can fiber-optic sensing (FOS) address these issues and provide a practical, effective and reliable sensing alternative? Over the last few years, FOS have seen increased acceptance and widespread use for structural sensing and health monitoring applications in composites, civil engineering, aerospace, marine, oil & gas, etc. Nowadays, a variety of rugged sensors and interrogation instruments are commercially available - offering attractive features, reliability and reasonable pricing. In this paper, the authors present a brief overview on the state-of-the-art of optical fiber sensors and instrumentation for bridge seismic and health monitoring applications. The authors will highlight several bridge projects where FOS were used, and describe the associated successes and challenges for each application. Many successes are coupled to improved FOS tools: better sensor packages, simpler and less expensive instrumentation, improved installation techniques, and more efficient data analysis tools. Particular attention is given to the economics of instrumenting civil structures – when and how it pays.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • Only the abstract is provided for this paper.
• Corporate Authors:

  Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research

  State University of New York, 107 Red Jacket Quadrangle, P.O. Box 610025
  Buffalo, NY  United States  14261-0025
• Authors:
  • Graver, Tom
  • Ferguson, Steve
  • Haber, Todd
  • Csipkes, Andrei
  • Miller, Jeff
• Conference:
  • Sixth National Seismic Conference on Bridges and Highways
  • Location: Charleston SC, United States
  • Date: 2008-7-28 to 2008-7-30
• Publication Date: 2008

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Pagination: 1p
• Monograph Title: Sixth National Seismic Conference on Bridges and Highways: Seismic Technologies for Extreme Loads

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Analysis; Bridges; Data collection; Fiber optics; Inspection equipment; Seismicity; Sensors; State of the art; Structural health monitoring
• Subject Areas: Bridges and other structures; Highways; Maintenance and Preservation; I60: Maintenance;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01356847
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Nov 16 2011 2:51PM