A Long-Term Monitoring Method of Corrosion Damage of Prestressed Anchor Cable

Based on high-stress characteristics of prestressed anchor cables, this paper develops an axial-distributed testing method to test corrosion damage of prestressed anchor cables. The positioning accuracy and corrosion range of an axial-distributed optical fiber sensor is studied, and its mathematical model between corrosion mass loss and axial fiber strain is established. The experimental results show that the fiber strain from an axial-distributed sensor enables one to reflect the corrosion rate along a prestressed anchor. Moreover, it has a greater sensitivity when an anchored cable has a higher stress. The mathematical model between corrosion mass loss and axial fiber strain is determined to be ε=4723.64ρ+2592.95. The corrosion location along the anchor cable is characterized by axial fiber strain. Therefore, this work provides an insight for cable corrosion.