Conventional geotechnical instrumentation techniques available for monitoring of slopes, especially soil-nailed slopes have limitations such as electromagnetic interference, low accuracy, poor longterm reliability and difficulty in mounting a series of strain sensors on a soil nail bar with a small-diameter. This paper presents a slope monitoring system based on fibre Bragg grating (FBG) sensing technology. This monitoring system is designed to perform long-term monitoring of slope movements, strains along soil nails, and other slope reinforcement elements. All these FBG sensors are fabricated and calibrated in laboratory and a trial of this monitoring system has been successfully conducted on a roadside slope in Hong Kong. As part of the slope stability improvement works, soil nails and a toe support soldier-pile wall were constructed. During the slope works, more than 100 FBG sensors were installed on a soil nail, a soldier pile, and an in- place inclinometer. The paper presents the layout and arrangement of the instruments as well as the installation procedures adopted. Monitoring data have been collected since March 2008. This trial has demonstrated the great potential of the optical fibre monitoring system for long-term monitoring of slope performance. The advantages of the slope monitoring system and experience gained in the field implementation are also discussed in the paper.

Thin-walled adaptive structures render a large and important group of adaptive structures. Typical material system used for them is a composite laminate that includes piezoelectric material based sensors and actuators. The piezoelectric active elements are in the form of thin patches bonded onto or embedded into the structure. Among different types of patches, the paper considers those polarized in the thickness direction. The finite element method (FEM) imposed itself as an essential technical support for the needs of structural design. This paper gives a brief description of a developed shell type finite element for active/adaptive thin-walled structures and the element is, furthermore, used as a tool to consider the aspect of mesh distortion over the surface of actuators and sensors. The aspect is of significance for simulation of behavior of adaptive structures and implementation of control algorithms.

The present paper deals with the analytical solution of a functionally graded piezoelectric (FGP) cylinder in the magnetic field under mechanical, thermal and electrical loads. All mechanical, thermal and electrical properties except Poisson ratio can be varied continuously and gradually along the thickness direction of the cylinder based on a power function. The cylinder is assumed to be axisymmetric. Steady state heat transfer equation is solved by considering the appropriate boundary conditions. Using Maxwell electro dynamic equation and assumed magnetic field along the axis of the cylinder, Lorentz's force due to magnetic field is evaluated for non homogenous state. This force can be employed as a body force in the equilibrium equation. Equilibrium and Maxwell equations are two fundamental equations for analysis of the problem. Comprehensive solution of Maxwell equation is considered in the present paper for general states of non homogeneity. Solution of governing equations may be obtained using solution of the characteristic equation of the system. Achieved results indicate that with increasing the non homogenous index, different mechanical and electrical components present different behaviors along the thickness direction. FGP can control the distribution of the mechanical and electrical components in various structures with good precision. For intelligent properties of functionally graded piezoelectric materials, these materials can be used as an actuator, sensor or a component of piezo motor in electromechanical systems.

Identification of vibration parameters from the analysis of the dynamic response of a structure plays a key role in current health monitoring systems. This study evaluates the capabilities of the recently developed Synchrosqueezed Wavelet Transform (SWT) to extract instant frequencies and damping values from the simulated noise-contaminated response of a structure. Two approaches to estimate the modal damping ratio from the results of the SWT are presented. The results obtained are compared to other signal processing methods based on Continuous Wavelet (CWT) and Hilbert-Huang (HHT) transforms. It was found that the time-frequency representation obtained via SWT is sharped than the obtained using just the CWT and it allows a more robust extraction of the individual modal responses than using the HHT. However, the identification of damping ratios is more stable when the CWT coefficients are employed.

This study proposes an optics-based active sensing system for continuous monitoring of underground pipelines in nuclear power plants (NPPs). The proposed system generates and measures guided waves using a single laser source and optical cables. First, a tunable laser is used as a common power source for guided wave generation and sensing. This source laser beam is transmitted through an optical fiber, and the fiber is split into two. One of them is used to actuate macro fiber composite (MFC) transducers for guided wave generation, and the other optical fiber is used with fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors to measure guided wave responses. The MFC transducers placed along a circumferential direction of a pipe at one end generate longitudinal and flexural modes, and the corresponding responses are measured using FBG sensors instrumented in the same configuration at the other end. The generated guided waves interact with a defect, and this interaction causes changes in response signals. Then, a damage-sensitive feature is extracted from the response signals using the axi-symmetry nature of the measured pitch-catch signals. The feasibility of the proposed system has been examined through a laboratory experiment.