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High-frequency dynamic distributed fiber optic strain sensing for civil infrastructure applications

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Abstract

Distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) has shown the potential to enable enhanced structural health monitoring (SHM) versus conventional strain gauges as thousands of strain measurements are possible. Current DFOS systems have limited dynamic sensing capabilities in terms of both sampling length and frequency. Chirped pulse phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometry utilizing weak fiber Bragg gratings as a sensor (CP ϕ-OTDR) has the potential to provide larger measurement lengths (potentially kilometres) and higher sensing rates (on the order of kHz). A proof of concept impact test was conducted by dropping a known mass from a fixed height onto a simply supported beam to investigate the effect that impact energy and sensing gauge length have on the accuracy of the measurements from the CP ϕ-OTDR system. Two different mass drop heights and four different sensor gauges (i.e. 300, 500, 800, and 1000 mm) were investigated. To enable the evaluation of measurement accuracy, the measurements from the CP ϕ-OTDR system were compared to a commercially available optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR) system as well as strain gauges. The CP ϕ-OTDR system provided static and dynamic measurements that were within 3 microstrain of the commercial system. However, the CP ϕ-OTDR and OFDR systems measured the effects of both stress and sound waves due to impact, meaning that the strain measurements immediately after impact did not match those from electrical resistance strain gauges, which were not influenced by the sound waves.

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Data availability

The data for experiments presented in this article is available upon request from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Fuzheng Sun, Jacob Yager, Jodie Goodwin, and Gerard Tatel for their assistance with the experimental program.

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge Transport Canada and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada for their financial support of this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada

    Neil A. Hoult, Joshua Woods & Hannah Kassenaar

  2. Department of Physics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Yuan Wang & Xiaoyi Bao

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  1. Neil A. Hoult
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  2. Joshua Woods
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  3. Yuan Wang
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  4. Hannah Kassenaar
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  5. Xiaoyi Bao
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Correspondence to Neil A. Hoult.

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Hoult, N.A., Woods, J., Wang, Y. et al. High-frequency dynamic distributed fiber optic strain sensing for civil infrastructure applications. J Civil Struct Health Monit 14, 369–382 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13349-023-00727-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13349-023-00727-z

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