ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: Due to the increasing needs for robust highway pavement structural monitoring tools with high accuracy and functionality, this paper introduces some preliminary outcomes from our research on developing an optical fiber based pavement behavior monitoring sensing system. The major content of this paper discusses the sensing system design concept and a novel optical fiber flexible encapsulation technique. The proposed sensing system integrates Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) and Brillouin Optical Time Domain Analysis/ Reflectometry (BOTDA/R) techniques to ensure the large coverage and local high accurate monitoring. A new flexible encapsulation technique for optical fiber has been proposed to overcome the difficulties in withstanding the harsh working environment in pavement structures. Lab and field tests have also been carried out to study the effectiveness of the proposed flexible encapsulation method. It has been found that the proposed sensors has high survival rate (>75%) and are efficient for long term pavement structural behavior monitoring.
