Internal deformation monitoring for earth-rockfill dam via high-precision flexible pipeline measurements

The internal deformation of high earth-rockfill dam is an important parameter that reflects its safety. There is an urgent need to have a precise and reliable internal deformation monitoring technology due to the limitation of traditional sensors. We propose a novel method to monitor internal deformation of dam through continuous measurement of flexible pipelines that embedded in the dam. A pipeline robot is invented, with one inertial measurement unit and multiple odometers, to measure the deformation of the customized pipeline system. The proposed method is verified through filed tests and real dam in suit experiments. The results show that the relative deformation measurement precision is approximately 1/100,000 the length of the pipeline and millimeter-level deformation measurement over 300 m can be realized. This technology is promising for internal deformation monitoring of high-rockfill dams. Further research will focus on the miniaturization of measurement system and reliability improvement of this technology.