FIBRADIKE, a novel distributed fiber optic monitoring system for dikes and earth dams

Safety issues related to climate change are one of the major challenges of modern society. One of the most significant risks is represented by extreme flood events which could lead to dike or earth dam breaching with catastrophic consequences for the environment. Despite the relevance of these infrastructure and modern advanced sensing technologies, dike and earth dam safety monitoring is carried out as it has been for centuries with visual inspections. In the best case, traditional point sensors, like piezometers, are installed in some limited sections. In this way it is not possible to early identify problem sections, which can be located many km away from the observation point. In this research an attempt has been made in order to develop a distributed fiber optical sensing system for dike and earth dam safety monitoring. The core of the system is represented by a novel distributed pore water pressure sensing unit, in the form of a specifically designed fiber optic sensing cable.. The development and first promising results of laboratory testing carried out on the industrially produced prototypes of the sensing cable are presented in this paper.