| Summary: | Distributed optical fibre sensors (DOFS) taking advantage of the scattering mechanisms occurring within the fibre sensing element, i.e. Rayleigh, Raman and Brillouin scattering, have been an intense research subject over the last three decades. They offer widespread practical in-filed applications due to the inherent advantages possessed, such as small size, light weight, high sensitivity, excellent performance, intrinsic durability to harsh environment, immunity to electromagnetic interference (EMI), and so on. Particularly, the one based on stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) process, so-called Brillouin optical time-domain analysis (BOTDA), presents the potential capability to perform remote sensing over long distance, typically tens of kilometres and extended to hundreds of kilometres recently. Optical fibre acting as not only a sensing element but also as a light guidance medium is able to detect a variety of physical parameters of interest, such as temperature, strain, pressure and acoustic fields to name a few. These measurands can be sensed either by directly or indirectly along the whole fibre. Permafrost systems in Northern Canada are strongly disturbed by the climate changes due to global warming; the thawing permafrost is in turn affecting the environments and communities. In order to achieve real-time surveillance of the stability of infrastructures, a BOTDA sensing network with novel fibre transducer is proposed to monitor the physical changes including positive/negative pore water pressures, temperature and displacement along permafrost environments. The main challenge is to measure simultaneously the positive and negative pore water pressures and to discriminate among those measurands within a single transducer. As an initial attempt, a hydrogel polymer is deployed to build the transducer, which can expand or shrink due to water absorption or release by the material to detect positive and negative pressures in the target range of -100 kPa to +100 kilopascal along a permafrost system. A ...
|
|---|