FIBER OPTICS SMART STRUCTURES FOR NON-DESTRUCTIVE APPLICATIONS

Abstract

Optical fiber sensors are becoming increasingly famous and are well accepted for structural sensing and monitoring in variety of fields at the same time they are developing fast. For non-destructive testing applications optical fiber sensors are best devices because of their unique properties like small size, light weight and importantly dielectric glass construction that render them immune to electrical noise and EM interference which you cannot find in conventional electronic sensing system that use electronic components. In this particular paper we study how fiber operates using various principles, different sensors types followed by advantages and applications of optical fiber sensors for NDT(non-destructive testing) like structural sensing and monitoring in civil engineering, aerospace oil and gas and the most recent that includes monitoring of natural landscapes that extend over area  such as earthquake fault lines and volcanic motion.[1]-[2]