Utilização de sensores à base de fibra óptica visando o monitoramento de grandes estruturas na engenharia civil

Abstract

Optical fibers are used in different areas and in many applications. In Civil Engineering, they have been used for the structural monitoring as an alternative to traditional electrical sensors. This work aims to study the feasibility and application of sensors based on optic fibers to monitor large civil engineering structures. Three different types of experimental tests were carried out to evaluate the results where specimens were instrumented with electrical and optical strain gages. The first type of tests was simple tensile tests where steel bars were submitted to monotonic loading untilcollapse. In the second type of test, the automation of a triorthogonal joint gage, that is a typical instrument used for monitoring concrete dams. Finally, was studied the last type of tests was compression tests carried out with cylindrical concrete specimens for determining Young modulus. Regarding the use of optical sensors, there were many problems with the optical data acquisition system; so three different data acquisition units were used to carry on the tests. Concerning the accuracy of the results, it was observed that the results obtained with optical sensors were similar to the electrical sensors results. However, when the optical sensors were submitted to large deformations, signal loss occurred due to the interruption of the light flow.