Self-monitoring Precast RC Beams Industrial Production with FBG Sensors for Quality Control and Real-Time Monitoring

Fibre optical sensors technology is widely employed for structural health monitoring of civil engineering structures, mainly existing structures, to guarantee a proper structural safety level. This research proposes an industrial solution which leads to the production of self-monitoring prestressed, precast RC beams through optical fibre technology, for quality prebuilt beam control and to monitor structures when the implementation in the construction site is done. As a first step, steel strands have been instrumented with Fiber Bragg Grating sensors. It was feasible through the embedding of FBGs into fibreglass manufactured saddles for easy positioning and the fixing of optical sensors on rebars during the pre-cast production site of beams. The following step consists of performing executing tensile tests for comparing and validating FBG monitoring results to traditional measurement systems (extensometers) and Digital Image Correlation measurement system (DIC). Throughout this article, the manufacturing saddles process and preliminary thermal tests are presented to display the first monitoring parameters’ results.