Establishment the Bridge Scour Safety Monitoring System by Using Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors

Taiwan is located in the rim of the Pacific Ocean. The activities of the earthquake happen frequently, which threaten the safety of the bridge in the Taiwan Island. Besides, the severe floods resulted from the typhoon or storm events can cause great damages due to the bridge scouring. The steep-sloped rivers and sand mining problems in Taiwan accelerate the degradation of the riverbed. Scouring at a bridge pier in the river can be caused by general scour, contraction scour or local scour. Among them, local scour is the most critical and generally caused by the interference of the structures with river flow. In the present study, it is shown that the FBG sensors have demonstrated the capability to measure the water level, scour depth and deposition height at the Dadu Bridge. The field results indicate that the real-time monitoring system using FBG sensors have the potential for real world applications.