NSF Award
9961268
This Phase I Small Business Technology Transfer project aims to demonstrate the feasibility, through physical experimentation at small scale, of using newly developed and very promising long-gage fiber-optic sensors, fiber Bragg grating sensors, for monitoring directly the 'macroscopic' internal deformation response of structures to strong ground motions and for non-destructive post-earthquake evaluation of structures. These sensors can be demodulated at high speeds (kHz to MHz) to accurately monitor dynamic events and to provide oversampling capabilities. Determination of the actual nonlinear inelastic response mechanisms developed by civil structures such as buildings and bridges during strong earthquakes and post-earthquake damage assessment of these structures represent very difficult challenges for earthquake structural engineers. Indeed, the ultimate objective of the whole research effort in modeling and analysis of structural response to earthquake ground motions is to predict the actual seismic response of structures with all its key features.<br/> Applications include earthquake damage assessment of buildings and civil structures. Capability to correct current unbalance between the analytical capabilities for predicting nonlinear structural response and damage parameters and the incompleteness of the information on the actual seismic response of structures measured in the laboratory and in the field.
