Strain monitoring of pressurized pipes using optical fiber Bragg gratings

Abstract EN

Strain measurements provide a nondestructive technique for the in-service evaluation and health monitoring of pressurized vessels and pipelines.

For these measurements, optical fiber sensors are especially appealing because of their hazard and electromagnetic interference-free nature.

Their use also enables the remote operation of the optical sensors, where the sensor electronics and electrical connections are situated away from the sensing sites, which is a major advantage in many situations.

These sensors can further be networked by their connecting fibers to achieve unambiguous data readout of several sensors using reduced wiring and cost-effective installations.

In this work, optical fiber Bragg grating sensors are used to measure the hoop strain of pressurized pipes for the purpose of their in-service condition monitoring.

The motivation is to make use of the advantages of the optical sensors and investigate their performance characteristics and suitability for pipeline strain monitoring at relatively low operating pressures.

Strain measurements using the optical fiber sensor are compared to those obtained using an electrical strain gauges, showing better sensor linearity and simplicity of strain measurement.

This comparison justifies the choice to use the optical sensors for the proposed application.

The possibility of optical sensors networking using optical fibers along pipelines is also demonstrated.