Global and Local Fiber Optic Sensors for Health Monitoring of Civil Engineering Infrastructure Retrofit with FRP Materials

Fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) materials are currently used for strengthening civil engineering structures and bridges. The effectiveness of the strengthening system is highly dependent on the bond characteristics of the FRP material to the external surface of the structure. This article presents the application of two types of fiber optic sensors, which can be embedded in FRP materials to monitor the global and local behavior of the strengthened structure, respectively. The global sensor is designed to evaluate the overall condition of a structure based on the measured elongation of the FRP layer along the entire span of the structure. The success of this low-cost global sensor has been demonstrated using a full-scale prestressed concrete bridge girder that was loaded up to failure. The test results indicate that this type of sensor can be used to identify major changes in the overall behavior of the structure such as cracking of prestressed members or yielding of the internal reinforcement. The second sensor component consists of fiber Bragg grating sensors. The sensors were used to monitor the behavior of steel double-lap shear specimens tested under tensile loading up to failure. The measurements were used to identify abnormal structural behaviors such as epoxy cracking and/or FRP debonding. The test results compared well to the numerical values obtained from a three dimensional shear-lag model that was previously developed to predict the sensor response.