Applications of optical fiber sensor on local scour monitoring

Scour is one of the major causes for bridge failure. A real-time optical fiber sensory system for bridge scour, using fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors, has been developed and tested. These optical fiber sensors, especially the FBG scour-monitoring system, can measure both the process of scouring and the variation of water level change. Several test runs have been conducted in the laboratory and on-site to demonstrate the applicability of the FBG system. The results show that the system has the potential to be applied in the field to a real-time monitoring application for bridge scouring.