FBG-Based Sensing for Structural Health Monitoring of Road Infrastructure
Journal of Sensors 2021
Jānis Braunfelds, Uģis Seņkāns, Pēteris Šķēls, Rims Janeliukštis, Toms Salgals, Dmitrii Redka, Ilya Lyashuk, Jurģis Poriņš, Sandis Spolītis, Viktors Haritonovs, Vjačeslavs Bobrovs

Public road infrastructure is developed all around the world. To save resources, ensure public safety, and provide longer-lasting road infrastructure, structural health monitoring (SHM) applications for roads have to be researched and developed. Asphalt is one of the largest used surface materials for the road building industry. This material also provides relatively easy fiber optical sensor technology installment, which can be effectively used for SHM applications - road infrastructure monitoring as well as for resource optimization when road building or their repairs are planned. This article focuses on the research of the fiber Bragg grating (FBG) optical temperature and strain sensor applications in road SHM, which is part of the greater interdisciplinary research project started at Riga Technical University in the year 2017. Experimental work described in this article was realized in one of the largest Latvian road sites where the FBG strain and temperature sensors were installed into asphalt pavement and experiments were carried out in two main scenarios. Firstly, in a controlled environment with a calibrated falling weight deflectometer (FWD) to test the installed FBG sensors. Secondly, by evaluating the real-time traffic impact on the measured strain and temperature, where different types of vehicles passed the asphalt span in which the sensors were embedded. The findings in this research illustrate that by gathering and combining data from calibrated FWD measurements, measurements from embedded FBG optical sensors which were providing the essential information of how the pavement structure could sustain the load, and information about the traffic intensity on the specific road section, the structural life of the pavement can be evaluated and predicted. Thus, it enables optimal pavement future design for necessary requirements and constraints as well as efficient use, maintenance, and timely repairs of the public roads, directly contributing to the overall safety of our transportation system.


Keywords
optical sensors, fiber Bragg grating (FBG), structural health monitoring (SHM), pavement, asphalt
DOI
10.1155/2021/8850368
Hyperlink
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/js/2021/8850368/

Braunfelds, J., Seņkāns, U., Šķēls, P., Janeliukštis, R., Salgals, T., Redka, D., Lyashuk, I., Poriņš, J., Spolītis, S., Haritonovs, V., Bobrovs, V. FBG-Based Sensing for Structural Health Monitoring of Road Infrastructure. Journal of Sensors, 2021, Vol. 2021, Article ID 8850368. ISSN 1687-725X. e-ISSN 1687-7268. Available from: doi:10.1155/2021/8850368

Publication language
English (en)
The Scientific Library of the Riga Technical University.
E-mail: uzzinas@rtu.lv; Phone: +371 28399196