Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors-Based In Situ Monitoring and Safety Assessment of Loess Tunnel

Compared with electrical strain gauges, fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensing technology is a relatively novel method for tunnel structural health monitoring, which has a number of advantages including high accuracy, multiplexing, electromagnetic interference resistance, and good repeatability. In order to study the internal force of the tunnel liner and detect the potential safety hazards, series of strain monitoring tests of a loess tunnel, taking into account the complex stress and strain variation of the loess during tunnelling, were performed by employing the tandem linear FBG sensor arrays controlled by the wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technology. The concrete strain has obvious linear characteristics over time in the early stage and then gradually tends to a stable value. Moreover, after the necessary temperature compensation, loess tunnel structure safety was assessed through the analysis of real-time strain and internal force of the liner concrete, and the FBG monitoring data and safety assessment results indicate that the safety factors of various liner sections all meet the code requirements, which verify the safety and stability of the tunnel liner structure. The FBG sensors-based in situ monitoring technology can be well applied in the loess tunnel structure safety assessment.