Experimental verification of FRP bridge deck's monitoring system based on DFOS sensors

The paper presents the smart FRP composite bridge panel called „OptiDeck“ with integrated distributed fibre optic sensors (DFOS), to monitor the panel's behavior. The panel is intended for use in newly build and refurbished road bridges. From structure point of view the uniqueness of the presented solution results from innovative technological production process to create a honeycomb core in thick sandwich panel. In order for the monitoring system to cover the entire surface of the panel and to detect local damage, it was necessary to use a modern solution based on geometrically continuous DFOS system. The DFOS system serves as the structure health monitoring (SHM) system, which has been tested during the production and laboratory testing of a prototypes in natural scale. The advantages of DFOS measurements are well known and applied in many civil engineering applications. However, the potential benefits are still not fully utilized. Finally the experimental verification of the DFOS system integrated with the FRP deck panel is presented.