Real-Time Strain Monitoring and Control of Urban Bridge Cluster Monitoring System with FBG Sensor

Structural strain is one of the important parameters of representing structural health condition. Fiber-optic strain sensors have a number of inherent advantages, such as high sensitivity to external environment, small size, light weight, resistance to electromagnetic interference, ability for absolute measurement, superior stability, easy multiplexing and compatibility of being embedded in structures, etc.. In this paper, a novel strain monitoring method using optical fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor has been applied to the urban bridge cluster monitoring system, the principle, design and application in the structural health monitoring system are described, two years of normal operation has shown that this kind of strain monitoring and control method is feasible and useful.