A MONITORING system could provide early warning of building or pipeline collapse after an earthquake by spotting the first signs of cracking and assessing the seriousness of any damage.
The Distributed Brillouin Sensor (DBS) was developed by a team led by physicist Xiaoyi Bao at the University of Ottawa, Canada. It relies on the small temperature changes that occur in a deformed or cracked structure. Light from two lasers of different types travels through a fibre that runs the length of the structure. The temperature changes increase the frequency of light from only one of the types of laser: this…
