A review of harsh environment fiber optic sensing networks for bridge structural health monitoring

The Opto-electronic Technology Lab of Chongqing University (OTLCU) has been working on bridge structural health monitoring using fiber optic sensors in the past decade. A remote sensing network based on the Extrinsic Fabry-Perot Interferometer (EFPI) fiber sensor was developed and implemented on several large bridges in Chongqing, China. In this paper, a brief review of the OTLCU's research progress in this field was presented. Contrastive experiments between the EFPI strain sensor and the electrical strain patch (ESP) were introduced. Both internal embedding and surface mounting of the EFPI were studied. The design of the sensing network and two implementation examples were discussed, and some representative monitoring results were given.