Distributed fiber optic strain sensing for crack detection with Brillouin shift spectrum back analysis

Material cracking is one of the key mechanisms contributing to structural failure. Distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) can measure the strain profile along optical fiber distributively. However, the conventional strain measurement using a Brillouin-DFOS system (Brillouin optical time-domain analysis/reflectometry (BOTDA/R)) has a decimeter-order spatial resolution, making it difficult to measure the highly localized strain generated by a sub-millimeter crack. This paper introduces a crack analysis method based on decomposing the Brillouin scattering spectrum to overcome the spatial resolution induced crack measurement limitation of the BOTDA/R system. The method uses the non-negative least squares algorithm to back-calculate the strain profile within the spatial resolution around each measurement point. The performance of this method is verified by a four point bending test of a brittle slag cement-cement-bentonite beam. The crack width estimation error is improved to ±0.005 mm for a crack as narrow as 0.76 mm.