Title: Crack detection of a tensile steel specimen using plastic optical fibre sensor

Authors: Rupali Suresh; Kevin Sze Chiang Kuang

Addresses: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore ' Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, National University of Singapore, Blk. E1A, #07-03, 117576, Singapore

Abstract: In this paper, results demonstrating the use of plastic optical fibre (POF) sensors for crack detection and localisation in tensile steel specimen are presented. POF is employed to detect cracks using a high-resolution photon-counting optical time-domain reflectrometer (-OTDR). Although OTDR is an established technique in the telecommunication industry, its application for crack detection is new. The study shows that by using -OTDR and graded-index perfluorinated POF, it is possible to detect and locate the position of crack in a host structure loaded in tension, with detection accuracy of within 10 millimetres.

Keywords: plastic optical fibre; POF sensors; steel structures; optical time-domain reflectrometer; OTDR; damage detection; crack detection; tensile steel; crack localisation; structural engineering.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSTRUCTE.2016.079285

International Journal of Structural Engineering, 2016 Vol.7 No.4, pp.367 - 377

Received: 12 Sep 2015
Accepted: 27 Oct 2015
Published online: 26 Sep 2016 *

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