• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.469-482
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• 2009

The emerging sensor-based structural health monitoring (SHM) technology has a potential for cost-effective maintenance of aging civil infrastructure systems. The author proposes to integrate continuous and global monitoring using on-structure sensors with targeted local non-destructive evaluation (NDE). Significant technical challenges arise, however, from the lack of cost-effective sensors for monitoring spatially large structures, as well as reliable methods for interpreting sensor data into structural health conditions. This paper reviews recent efforts and advances made in addressing these challenges, with example sensor hardware and health monitoring software developed in the author's research center. The hardware includes a novel fiber optic accelerometer, a vision-based displacement sensor, a distributed strain sensor, and a microwave imaging NDE device. The health monitoring software includes a number of system identification methods such as the neural networks, extended Kalman filter, and nonlinear damping identificaiton based on structural dynamic response measurement. These methods have been experimentally validated through seismic shaking table tests of a realistic bridge model and tested in a number of instrumented bridges and buildings.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.299-304
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• 2007

There are to be some cracks on the material degradation part or the stress concentration parts of the main members, which carry on over-loads, of structures. Because these cracks can be used to evaluate the structural health status, it is important to monitor the crack growth for maintaining the structural safety. In this study, the fiber Bragg grating sensor with a drop ball was developed as a sensor for crack growth detection of an existing crack. The crack growth detection sensor was constructed with three parts: a probe part, a wavelength controling light source and receiver part, and an impact part. The probe part was just formed with a fiber Bragg grating optical fiber The wavelength controling light source part was composed of a current supplying circuit, a DFB laser diode, and a TEC controling circuit for wavelength control. Also, the impact part was just implemented by dropping a steel ball. The performance of this sensor was confirmed by the experiments of the crack detection with an aluminum plate having one existing crack. According to these experiments, the difference of the sensor signal outputs was correlated with the crack length. So, it was confirmed that this sensor could be applied to monitor the crack growth.

• Advanced Composite Materials
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.125-137
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• 2008

FBG (Fiber Bragg Grating) sensors and optical fibers were embedded into CFRP dry preforms before resin impregnation in VaRTM (Vacuum-assisted Resin Transfer Molding). The embedding location was the interface between the skin and the stringer in a CFRP-stiffened panel. The reflection spectra of the FBG sensors monitored the strain and temperature changes during all the molding processes. The internal residual strains of the CFRP panel could be evaluated during both the curing time and the post-curing time. The temperature changes indicated the differences between the dry preform and the outside of the vacuum bagging. After the molding, four-point bending was applied to the panel for the verification of its structural integrity and the sensor capabilities. The optical fibers were then used for the newly-developed PPP-BOTDA (Pulse-PrePump Brillouin Optical Time Domain Analysis) system. The long-range distributed strain and temperature can be measured by this system, whose spatial resolution is 100 mm. The strain changes from the FBGs and the PPP-BOTDA agreed well with those from the conventional strain gages and FE analysis in the CFRP panel. Therefore, the fiber-optic sensors and its system were very effective for the evaluation of the VaRTM composite structures.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2006.03a
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• pp.86-95
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• 2006

Brillouin backscatter is a type of reflection that occurs when light is shone into an optical fibre. Brillouin reflections are very sensitive to changes in the fibre arising from external effects, such as temperature, strain and pressure. We report here several case studies on the measurement of strain using Brillouin reflections. A mechanical bending test of an I beam, deployed with both fiber optic sensors and conventional strain gauge rosettes, was performed with the aim of evaluating: (1) the capability and technical limit of the DTSS technology for strain profile sensing; (2) the reliability of strain measurement using fiber optic sensor. The average values of strains obtained from both DTSS and strain gauges (corresponding to the deflection of I beam) showed a linear relationship and an excellent one-to-one match. A practical application of DTSS technology as an early warning system for land sliding or subsidence was examined through a field test at a hillside. Extremely strong, lightweight, rugged, survivable tight-buffered cables, designed for optimal strain transfer to the fibre, were used and clamped on the subsurface at a depth of about 50cm. It was proved that DTSS measurements could detect the exact position and the progress of strain changes induced by land sliding and subsidence. We also carried out the first ever distributed dynamic strain measurement (10Hz) on the Korean Train eXpress(KTX) railway track in Daejeon, Korea. The aim was to analyse the integrity of a section of track that had recently been repaired. The Sensornet DTSS was used to monitor this 85m section of track while a KTX train passed over. In the repaired section the strain increases to levels of 90 microstrain, whereas in the section of regular track the strain is in the region of 30-50 microstrain. The results were excellent since they demonstrate that the DTSS is able to measure small, dynamic changes in strain in rails during normal operating conditions. The current 10km range of the DTSS creates a potential to monitor the integrity of large lengths of track, and especially higher risk sections such as bridges, repaired track and areas at risk of subsidence.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.39-43
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• 2015

This study extends the Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS) application to delineate the saturated zones in shallow sediment and evaluate the groundwater flow in both downward and upward directions. Dry, partially and fully saturated zones and water level in the subsurface can be recognized from this study. High resolution seepage velocity in vertical direction was estimated from the temperature data in the fully saturated zone. By a single profile, water level can be detected and seepage velocity in saturated zone can be estimated. Furthermore, thermal gradient analysis serves as a new technique to verify unsaturated and saturated zones in the subsurface. The vertical seepage velocity distribution in the recognized saturated zone is then analyzed with improvement of Bredehoeft and Papaopulos' model. This new approach provides promising potential in real-time monitoring of groundwater movement.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.379-392
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• 2015

A number of acceleration-based damage detection methods have been developed but they have not been widely applied in engineering practices because the acceleration response is insensitive to minor damage of civil structures. In this article, a damage detection approach using the long-gauge strain sensing technology and the principle component analysis technology is proposed. The Long gauge FBG sensor has its special merit for damage detection by measuring the averaged strain over a long-gauge length, and it can be connected each other to make a distributed sensor network for monitoring the large-scale civil infrastructure. A new damage index is defined by performing the principle component analyses of the long-gauge strains measured from the intact and damaged structures respectively. Advantages of the long gauge sensing and the principle component analysis technologies guarantee the effectiveness for structural damage localization. Examples of a simple supported beam and a steel stringer bridge have been investigated to illustrate the successful applications of the proposed method for structural damage detection.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.6-12
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• 2010

Fiber optic sensor using fiber Bragg grating(FBG) probes is used for monitoring strain and temperature distributed on the wide surfaces of large structures. In this paper, in order to use many FBG probes in one optical fiber line, we propose a complex multiplexing technology which is composed of two techniques, one is time division multiplexing and another is wavelength division multiplexing. However, we only investigate the characteristics of time division multiplexing because FBG sensors basically can be operated by wavelength division multiplexing. We calculate the optimal reflectivities and the lengthwise location of five FBG probes in serial connection in order to obtain the unique reflected intensities from the FBG probes. We fabricate five FBG probes with the reflectivities of 13%, 16%, 25%, 40% and 80%, which are determined by the theoretical calculation, and observe the signal reflected from each FBG in the time domain from the experiment. There are differences between experimental and theoretical results caused by the signal noise and the differences of reflectivities of FBG probes. But the experimental results shows the reflected signals of five FBG probes which prove the availability of complex multiplexing.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.395-399
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• 2007

Renewable energy sources such as wind energy is copiously available without any limitation. Wind turbines are used to tap the potential of wind energy which is available in millions of megawatt. Reliability of wind turbine is critical to extract this maximum amount of energy from the wind. We reviewed different techniques, methodologies, and algorithms developed to monitor the performance of wind turbine as well as for an early fault detection to keep away the wind turbines from catastrophic conditions due to sudden breakdowns. To keep the wind turbine in operation, implementation of Condition Monitoring System (CMS) is paramount, and for this purpose ample knowledge of these types of system is mandatory. So, an attempt has been made in this direction to review maximum approaches related to CMS in this piece of writing.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Combustion
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.27-35
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• 2004

Diode laser absorption sensors are advantageous because they may provide fast, sensitive, absolute, and selective measurements of species concentration. These systems are very attractive for practical applications owing to its compactness, resonable cost, robustness, and ease of use. In addition, diode lasers are fiber-optic compatible and thus enable simultaneous measurements of multiple species along a line-of-sight. Recent advances of room-temperature, near-IR and visible diode laser sources for telecommunication, optical data storage applications make it possible to be applied for combustion diagnostics based on diode laser absorption spectroscopy. Therefore, combined with fiber-optics and high sensitive detection strategies, compact and portable sensor systems are now appearing for variety of applications. The objectives of this research are to develope a new gas sensing system and to verify feasibility of this system. Wavelength and power characteristics as a function of injection current and temperature are experimentally found out. Direct absorption spectroscopy has been demonstrated in these experiments and has a bright prospect to this diode laser system.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.547-553
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• 2020

As aging infrastructures increase along with time, the efficient maintenance becomes more significant and accurate responses from the sensors are pre-requisite. Among various responses, strain is commonly used to detect damage such as crack and fatigue. Optical fiber sensor is one of the promising sensing techniques to measure strains with high-durability, immunity for electrical noise, long transmission distance. Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) is a point sensor to measure the strain based on reflected signals from the grating, while Brillouin Optic Correlation Domain Analysis (BOCDA) is a distributed sensor to measure the strain along with the optical fiber based on scattering signals. Although the FBG provides the signal with high accuracy and reproducibility, the number of sensing points is limited. On the other hand, the BOCDA can measure a quasi-continuous strain along with the optical fiber. However, the measured signals from BOCDA have low accuracy and reproducibility. This paper proposed a multi-fidelity data-fusion method based on Gaussian Process Regression to improve the fidelity of the strain distribution by fusing the advantages of both systems. The proposed method was evaluated by laboratory test. The result shows that the proposed method is promising to improve the fidelity of the strain.