Optical Fiber Sensor for corrosion detection and evolution monitoring in reinforced concrete structures
Abstract
Corrosion of reinforced bars (rebars) in concrete structures is a major issue in civil engineering structures, being its detection and evolution measurement a challenge for applied research. In this project we present a new methodology to detect corrosion and its evolution monitoring, based on the direct rebar-concrete interface changes measurement by the use of Optical Fiber Sensor (OFS) either a Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) network or Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry (OFDR) interrogation technique providing distributed strain measurement.
A built-in pre-strain profile makes possible the detection of general and pitting corrosion with the same sensor. Accelerated corrosion tests were performed in an electrolytic solution under both pitting and general corrosion. A clear correlation is observed between the evolution of the spectral shift and the corrosion progress thus demonstrating the feasibility of this technique.
Keywords
Frequency domain analysis
Optical fibers
Corrosion prevention
Fiber Bragg gratings
Corrosion
Concretes
Concrete buildings
Reinforced concrete
Pitting
Intelligent structures
Structural health monitoring
Strain measurement
Concrete construction
Accelerated corrosion tests
Civil engineering structures
Corrosion of reinforced bars
Corrosion detection
Distributed strain measurement
Interrogation techniques
Electrolytic solution
instrumentation
Optical frequency domain reflectometry