Comparative In Situ Study of Dynamic Load Generated by Gravel Piles Measured by a Fiber-Optic Interferometer

Abstract

Currently, all the technology used for seismic monitoring is based on sensors in the electrical domain. There are, however, other physical principles that may enable and fully replace existing devices in the future. This paper introduces one of these approaches, namely the field of fiber optics, which has great potential to be fully applied in the field of vibration measurement. The proposed solution uses a Michelson fiber-optic interferometer designed without polarization fading and with an operationally passive demodulation technique using three mutually phase-shifted optical outputs. Standard instrumentation commonly used in the field of seismic monitoring in geotechnical engineering was used as a reference. Comparative measurements were carried out during the implementation of gravel piles, which represents a significant source of vibration. For the correlation of the data obtained, the linear dependence previously verified in laboratory measurements was used. The presented results show that the correlation is also highly favorable (correlation coefficient in excess of 0.9) from the values measured in situ, with an average deviation for the oscillation velocity amplitude of the optical sensor not exceeding 0.0052.