Development of FBGS-systems for monitoring purposes of large timber structures

Wood is used nowadays as structural load bearing material for large audacious structures. Only the use of the most recent advances in computer technologies combined with exceptional production quality enabled the achievement of such structures. The creation of such structures nowadays, even though possible, still demands a strong personal commitment of the all parties involved and require exceptional regulations which are accompanied by large safety factors. Application of Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors in monitoring methods for timber structures are not used yet although they are applied already in many other fields of civil engineering for instance. Measurement of two important parameters for timber engineers is investigated in the presented feasibility study: moisture content of the wood and strain. In conventional methods, these two parameters can often not be measured simultaneously and two separate systems need to be used. The study presented here shows that although not many sensors are available on the current market, solutions were found to enable continuous measurement of these two parameters using one single instrumentation system, i.e. Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors.