In civil engineering pile systems are used in unstable areas as a foundation of buildings or other structures. Among other parameters, the load capacity of the piles depends on their length. A better understanding of the mechanism of load-transfer to the soil would allow selective optimisation of the system. Thereby, the strain variations along the loaded pile are of major interest. In this paper, we report about a field trial using an optical backscatter reflectometer for distributed fibre-optic strain measurements along a driven pile. The most significant results gathered in a field trial with artificial pile loadings are presented. Calibration results show the performance of the fibre-optic system with variations in the strain-optic coefficient.

Date Published: 30 May 2016
PDF: 5 pages
Proc. SPIE 9916, Sixth European Workshop on Optical Fibre Sensors, 99162P (30 May 2016); doi: 10.1117/12.2236986

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9916:
Sixth European Workshop on Optical Fibre Sensors
Elfed Lewis, Editor(s)