The Use of Optical Fibre Sensors in Dam Monitoring: Lincoln Ventures Limited Platti@lvl - Co.nz

The Use of Optical Fibre Sensors in Dam
Monitoring
Ian Platt, Michael Hagedorn, and Ian Woodhead
Lincoln Ventures Limited

platti@lvl.co.nz
1 Introduction
The building and maintenance of dams can require considerable investment

for any country, organization or individual. Depending upon its size and
use, dam failure may result in significant damage to the environment and
economy or in the case of unexpected catastrophic failure the loss of life.
These issues have been well understood for thousands of years over which
design has evolved with the advent of new materials and the increased water
demand that push dams to become larger and more numerous. While various
forms of monitoring have been in place for as long as dams have been built,
the development of mechanical and electronic sensors enables an increasingly
more thorough and accurate measurement of dam parameters, such as strain
(e.g. for structural members), water level, water pressure and temperature.
Such devices however are still point monitoring sensors that often require
specialized housing and communication paths, limiting their deployment and
thus overall effectiveness. With the development of optical fibre technology,
sensors either embedded into the line of the fibre or as branches to it allow the
possibility of deploying a large number of sensor points on a single fibre. The
advantages of optical fibre sensing are many [10] [18] including, 1) inertness
to extraneous environmental factors (e.g. moisture, most naturally occurring
chemicals, electromagnetic fields etc.), 2) potentially small cross section (min-
imal interference to structural integrity), 3) low signal attenuation over large
distances together with high bandwidth enable large numbers of sensors to
be multiplexed over distances of, potentially many kilometres, 4) the low cost
of the fibre itself. The cost of the associated monitoring equipment, while rel-
atively expensive in the past, is rapidly reducing as the technology becomes
more prolific and 5) much of the progress in optical fibre sensing technology is
due to advances from the highly funded field of communications technology.
As with the development of most technology in the field of Structural
Health Monitoring (SHM) it is the current disadvantages that impede mass
uptake into industry. While these disadvantages continue to be diminished
with ongoing research and development some of the most important ones
include 1) sensitivity to many different parameters. This sensitivity to ev-
erything can often make it difficult to extract signal relating to the required
observable. For example the spectral shift observed from Bragg gratings is
S.C. Mukhopadhyay (Ed.): New Developments in Sensing Technology for SHM, LNEE 96, pp. 233–251.
springerlink.com
c Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011
234 I. Platt, M. Hagedorn, and I. Woodhead
the same for both strain and temperature changes on the grating, 2) place-
ment of the sensor so that it measures the required parameter. For example
to measure strain on a structural component the strain must be transferred
to the fibre directly and not lost in the fixing material. As a consequence the
fixing method invariably increases the size of the sensor and much of its small
cross sectional advantage is lost. This is of course a problem with most other
sensors measuring similar parameters, and 3) cost of the monitoring equip-
ment. Though the cost of equipment is diminishing rapidly there is still a
significant outlay for many of the types of optical sensors proposed for SHM.
This work discusses the types of Optical Fibre Sensors (OFS) most com-
monly available and their use in monitoring some aspects of dam structure
integrity. Sections 2 and 3 begin by a brief review of both the operating prin-
ciples behind some OFS used in SHM and the types of dams in which they
may be employed. Section 4 looks at existing OFS dam monitoring systems
and those under development, while Section 5 introduces the Finite Difference
Time Domain (FDTD) technique for modelling the expected performance of
several new Bragg fibre configurations.
2 Optical Fibre Sensors
A detailed description behind the physics of guided light propagation is be-

yond the scope of the text and for the interested reader works by either [14]
or [10] provide an excellent technical introduction. There are many different
types of optical sensors and only those that are commonly used for the types
of measurands specific to the SHM of dams are discussed here. A basic picture
of the main types of fibre sensors available for this application and their major
detection parameter is given in Table 1. In this table the distributable abil-
ity of the sensors is described as follows. Distributive sensing is defined as the
ability to extract measurements of the required parameter anywhere along the
fibre. In these cases the whole fibre itself is the sensor and no special attach-
ments are required. The methods used here are the material scattering modes,
which either involve scattering from inhomogeneity within the fibre material
(Rayleigh scattering) or result from the light field interaction at a molecular or
atomic level of the fibre material (Raman and Brillouin scattering). In either
case some of the incident signal is scattered backward or forward from which
the required parameter is inferred. On the other end of the scale, point sensors
are those defined as usually being at the end of some path along which the sig-
nal is carried to the interrogation equipment. Such sensors have one sensor per
fibre. Quasi-distributive sensors are really many point sensors along the one fi-
bre and are usually interrogated by isolating their position by time of flight of
the light pulse (Optical Time Domain Reflectometry – OTDR) or in the case
of Bragg Grating frequency encoding.
A considerable amount of OFS work has been directed towards the health
monitoring of structural systems where a rigid structural member is used (e.g.
bridges, buildings, [5] [9]) and concrete dams have benefited from some of this

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The Use of Optical Fibre Sensors in Dam

Ian Platt, Michael Hagedorn, and Ian Woodhead

Lincoln Ventures Limited

The building and maintenance of dams can require considerable investment

2 Optical Fibre Sensors

A detailed description behind the physics of guided light propagation is be-

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