Applications

The FBG technology is widely used for the surveillance of structural health parameters of civil structures, such as bridges, dams, tunnels and historical buildings during its construction, design validation and lifetime operation. Due to the intensified use and increasing age of such civil structures, the monitoring of safety relevant measures is of growing importance. Typical monitored parameters are strain, displacement, water level or temperature.

The FBG technology is particularly cost effective when applied to large scale structures, deploying hundreds of sensors for long term measurement and surveillance. Since large numbers of sensors are included in one fiber, the deployment can be realized in a very efficient way. In addition, the comparably high costs of interrogation units for large scale sensing systems can be efficiently reduced through multiplexing technologies.

Optimized, lightweight materials in aerospace as well as infrastructure areas such as bridges and buildings should keep up more extreme environmental situations while being more energy efficient. In addition, life cycles of materials should be optimally exploited and ageing processes detected at an early stage. In order to assess the limits, engionic Fiber Optics offers intelligent fiber optic sensors. So, e.g. cable systems can report material fatigue or wind turbines icing hazards in a timely manner.