• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.17-26
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• 2011

Ground anchor method is one of the most popular reinforcing technology in Korea. For the sound monitoring of slope reinforced by permanent anchor for a long period, monitoring the tension force of ground anchor is very important. However, special technology except conventional load cell has not been developed for this purpose. In this paper, a new method is described to replace the conventional strain gauge and V.W. type load cell which has been commonly used as a prestress force monitoring tool for a short-term and long-term. Four 11.5 m long strain detectable tension type anchors were made using FBG sensor embedded tendon since FBG sensor is smaller than strain gauge type load cell and does not have noise from electromagnetic wave. Each two set strain detectable tension type anchors were installed into the different ground conditions, i.e., soft rock and weathered granite soil. Prestress force of ground anchor was monitored during the loading-unloading step from in-situ pullout test using proposed FBG sensor embedded in the tendon and the conventional load cell Test results show that the prestress force monitored from FBG sensor may well be used practically, for it almost matches with that measured from expensive load cell.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.41 no.11
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• pp.1135-1142
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• 2008

Collapse of the levee surrounding structure(culvert) accounts for l0 % of collapse factors of the river levees. In particular, in 2002, the levee collapse that happened at "Nakdong River" at flood usually happened around culverts. This levee collapse has mechanism that the cavity expands with internal erosion at flood after the pore and cavity are formed between culvert and levee copula which are heterogeneity material. The study regarding the cavity or flowing detection around a culvert for safety management of a river levee is in the proceeding. In this study, the characteristic of two sensors could be figured out through an experiment about displacement measure of Flex sensor and FBG sensor and the decision of more suitable sensor was possible for safety supervision of river levee. According to an experiment result, several characteristics of FBG sensor could be known in consistency of the measure data and minute displacement measure part regarding displacement measure and this characteristic may supplement a shortcoming of Flex sensor at this time.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Hazard Mitigation
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.79-86
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• 2009

With the substantial increase of the size of structure, the management of excavation becomes more difficult. Therefore, massive collapses which are related to retaining wall recently increase. However, since the study on measuring and monitoring the pre-stressing force of anchor is insufficient, behavior of anchor may not be predicted and monitored appropriately by the existing strain gauge and load cell type monitoring system. FBG Sensor, which is smaller than strain gauge and has better durability and does not have a noise from electromagnetic waves, is adapted to measure the strain and pre-stressing force of 7-wire strand, so called smart tendon. A series of pullout tests were performed to verify the feasibility of smart tendon and find out the load transfer mechanism around the steel wire tendon fixed to rock with grout. Distribution of measured strains and estimated shear stresses are compared with those predicted by theoretical solutions. It was found that developed smart tendon can be used effectively for measuring strain of 7-wire strand anchor and theoretical solutions underestimate the magnitude of shear stress and load transfer depth.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.385-396
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• 2017

The recent advancements in sensing technologies allow us to record measurements from target structures at multiple locations and with relatively high spatial resolution. Such measurements can be used to develop data-driven methodologies for condition assessment, control, and health monitoring of target structures. One of the state-of-the-art technologies, Fiber Optic Strain Sensors (FOSS), is developed at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center, and is based on Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors. These strain sensors are accurate, lightweight, and can provide almost continuous strain-field measurements along the length of the fiber. The strain measurements can then be used for real-time shape-sensing and operational load-estimation of complex structural systems. While several works have demonstrated the successful implementation of FOSS on large-scale real-life aerospace structures (i.e., airplane wings), there is paucity of studies in the literature that have investigated the potential of extending the application of FOSS into civil structures (e.g., tall buildings, bridges, etc.). This work assesses the feasibility of using FOSS to predict operational loads (e.g., wind loads) on chain-like structures. A thorough investigation is performed using analytical, computational, and experimental models of a 4-story steel building test specimen, developed at the University of Southern California. This study provides guidelines on the implementation of the FOSS technology on building-like structures, addresses the associated technical challenges, and suggests potential modifications to a load-estimation algorithm, to achieve a robust methodology for predicting operational loads using strain-field measurements.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.109-117
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• 2008

In this study, a method predicting the displacement responseof structures from the measured dynamic strain signal is proposed by using a mode decomposition technique. Dynamic loadings including wind and seismic loadings could be exerted to the bridge. In order to examine the bridge stability against these dynamic loadings, the prediction of displacement response is very important to evaluate bridge stability. Because it may be not easy for the displacement response to be acquired directly on site, an indirect method to predict the displacement response is needed. Thus, as an alternative for predicting the displacement response indirectly, the conversion of the measured strain signal into the displacement response is suggested, while the measured strain signal can be obtained using fiber optic Bragg-grating (FBG) sensors. To overcome such a problem, a mode decomposition technique was used in this study. The measured strain signal is decomposed into each modal component by using the empirical mode decomposition(EMD) as one of mode decomposition techniques. Then, the decomposed strain signals on each modal component are transformed into the modal displacement components. And the corresponding mode shapes can be also estimated by using the proper orthogonal decomposition(POD) from the measured strain signal. Thus, total displacement response could be predicted from combining the modal displacement components.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.139-150
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• 2017

The structural strain plays a significant role in structural condition assessment of in-service bridges in terms of structural bearing capacity, structural reliability level and entire safety redundancy. Therefore, it has been one of the most important parameters concerned by researchers and engineers engaged in structural health monitoring (SHM) practices. In this paper, an SHM system instrumented on the Jiubao Bridge located in Hangzhou, China is firstly introduced. This system involves nine subsystems and has been continuously operated for five years since 2012. As part of the SHM system, a total of 166 fiber Bragg grating (FBG) strain sensors are installed on the bridge to measure the dynamic strain responses of key structural components. Based on the strain monitoring data acquired in recent two years, the strain-based structural condition assessment of the Jiubao Bridge is carried out. The wavelet multi-resolution algorithm is applied to separate the temperature effect from the raw strain data. The obtained strain data under the normal traffic and wind condition and under the typhoon condition are examined for structural safety evaluation. The structural condition rating of the bridge in accordance with the AASHTO specification for condition evaluation and load and resistance factor rating of highway bridges is performed by use of the processed strain data in combination with finite element analysis. The analysis framework presented in this study can be used as a reference for facilitating the assessment, inspection and maintenance activities of in-service bridges instrumented with long-term SHM system.

• Composites Research
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2016

Low-speed impact was localized on a stiffened composite structure, using 4 FBG sensors with 100 kHz-sampling rate interrogator and devised localization algorithm. The composite specimen consists of a main spar and several stringers, and the overall size of the specimen's surface is about $0.8{\times}1.2m$. Pre-stored reference data for 247 grid locations and 36 stiffener locations are gathered and used as comparison target for a random impact signal. The proposed algorithm uses the normalized cross-correlation method to compare the similarities of the two signals; the correlation results for each sensor's signal are multiplied by others, enabling mutual compensation. 20 verification points were successfully localized with a maximum error of 43.4 mm and an average error of 17.0 mm. For the same experimental setup, the performance of the proposed method is evaluated by reducing the number of sensors. It is revealed that the mutual compensation between the sensors is most effective in the case of a two sensor combination. For the sensor combination of FBG #1 and #2, the maximum localization error was 42.5 mm, with average error of 17.4 mm.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.13-25
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• 2012

Ground anchor method is one of the most popular reinforcing technology for slope in Korea. For the health monitoring of slope which is reinforced by permanent anchor for a long period, monitoring of the tension force of ground anchor is very important. However, since electromechanical sensors such as strain gauge and V/W type load cell are also subject to long-term risk as well as suffering from noise during long distance transmission and immunity to electromagnetic interference (EMI), optical FBG sensors embedded tendon was developed to measure strain of 7-wire strand by embedding FBG sensor into the center king cable of 7-wire strand. This FBG sensors embedded tendon has been successfully applied to measuring the short-term anchor force. But to adopt this tendon to long-term monitoring, temperature compensation of the FBG sensors embedded tendon should be done. In this paper, we described how to compensate the effect in compliance with the change of underground temperature during long-term tension force monitoring of ground anchors by using optical fiber sensors (FBG: Fiber Bragg Grating). The model test was carried out to determine the temperature sensitivity coefficient (${\beta}^{\prime}$) of FBG sensors embedded tendon. The determined temperature sensitivity coefficient ${\beta}^{\prime}=2.0{\times}10^{-5}/^{\circ}C$ was verified by comparing the ground temperatures predicted from the proposed sensor using ${\beta}^{\prime}$ with ground temperatures measured from ground thermometer. Finally, temperature compensations were carried out based on ${\beta}^{\prime}$ value and ground temperature measurement from KMA for the tension force monitoring results of tension type and compression type anchors, which had been installed more than 1 year before at the test site. Temperature compensated tension forces are compared with those measured from conventional load cell during the same measuring time. Test results show that determined temperature sensitivity coefficient (${\beta}^{\prime}$) of FBG sensors embedded tendon is valid and proposed temperature compensation method is also appropriate from the fact that the temperature compensated tension forces are not dependent on the change of ground temperature and are consistent with the tension forces measured from the conventional load cell.