Rock bolts have been widely used as rock reinforcing members in underground coal mine roadways and tunnels. Failures of rock bolts occur as a result of overloading, corrosion, seismic burst and bad grouting, leading to catastrophic economic and personnel losses. Monitoring the health condition of the rock bolts plays an important role in ensuring the safe operation of underground mines. This work presents a brief introduction on the types of rock bolts followed by a comprehensive review of rock bolt monitoring using smart sensors. Smart sensors that are used to assess rock bolt integrity are reviewed to provide a firm perception of the application of smart sensors for enhanced performance and reliability of rock bolts. The most widely used smart sensors for rock bolt monitoring are the piezoelectric sensors and the fiber optic sensors. The methodologies and principles of these smart sensors are reviewed from the point of view of rock bolt integrity monitoring. The applications of smart sensors in monitoring the critical status of rock bolts, such as the axial force, corrosion occurrence, grout quality and resin delamination, are highlighted. In addition, several prototypes or commercially available smart rock bolt devices are also introduced.

Corrosion of concrete reinforcement members has been recognized as a predominant structural deterioration mechanism for steel reinforced concrete structures. Many corrosion detection techniques have been developed for reinforced concrete structures, but a dependable one is more than desired. Acoustic emission technique and fiber optic sensing have emerged as new tools in the field of structural health monitoring. In this paper, we present the results of an experimental investigation on corrosion monitoring of a steel reinforced mortar block through combined acoustic emission and fiber Bragg grating strain measurement. Constant current was applied to the mortar block in order to induce accelerated corrosion. The monitoring process has two aspects: corrosion initiation and crack propagation. Propagation of cracks can be captured through corresponding acoustic emission whereas the mortar expansion due to the generation of corrosion products will be monitored by fiber Bragg grating strain sensors. The results demonstrate that the acoustic emission sources comes from three different types, namely, evolution of hydrogen bubbles, generation of corrosion products and crack propagation. Their corresponding properties are also discussed. The results also show a good correlation between acoustic emission activity and expansive strain measured on the specimen surface.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common type of arrhythmia, and is characterized by a disordered contractile activity of the atria (top chambers of the heart). A popular treatment for AF is radiofrequency (RF) ablation. In about 2.4% of cardiac RF ablation procedures, the catheter is accidently pushed through the heart wall due to the application of excessive force. Despite the various capabilities of currently available technology, there has yet to be any data establishing how cardiac perforation can be reliably predicted. Thus, two new FBG based sensor prototypes were developed to monitor contact levels and predict perforation. Two live sheep were utilized during the study. It was observed during operation that peaks appeared in rhythm with the heart rate whenever firm contact was made between the sensor and the endocardial wall. The magnitude of these peaks varied with pressure applied by the operator. Lastly, transmural perforation of the left atrial wall was characterized by a visible loading phase and a rapid signal drop-off correlating to perforation. A possible pre-perforation signal was observed for the epoxy-based sensor in the form of a slight signal reversal (12–26% of loading phase magnitude) prior to perforation (occurring over 8 s).

Underwater communication is crucial for subsea engineering. Currently, although a variety of available technologies are available for underwater communication, almost all of them are highly dependent on the conditions of the subsea environment. Hence, underwater communication is still a challenging issue. This article develops a new stress wave communication method that can be implemented along steel pipes for underwater data transmission. In this article, we analyze stress wave propagation along pipelines, and the corresponding channel response shows the features of dispersion and frequency selectivity. Thus, a suitable carrier frequency is then selected and binary phase-shift keying is applied to encode information into the carrier stress wave. The proposed single-input-single-output communication system is implemented on a steel pipe and experiments are conducted both when in air and seawater. Results demonstrate the validity and stability of the proposed method. The communication data rate of the method can reach 1000 b/s with a low bit error rate. The proposed method shows great promise for enabling underwater communication with lower loss and longer range than conventional underwater communication methods.

The measurement of high frequency vibrations is important in many scientific and engineering problems. This paper presents a novel, cost effective method using fiber optic fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) for the measurement of high frequency vibrations. The method uses wavelength matched FBG sensors, with the first sensor acting as a transmission filter and the second sensor acting as the sensing portion. Energy fluctuations in the reflection spectrum of the second FBG due to wavelength mismatch between the sensors are captured by a photodiode. An in-depth analysis of the optical circuit is provided to predict the behavior of the method as well as identify ways to optimize the method. Simple demonstrations of the method were performed with the FBG sensing system installed on a piezoelectric transducer and on a wind turbine blade. Vibrations were measured with sampling frequencies up to 1 MHz for demonstrative purposes. The sensing method can be multiplexed for use with multiple sensors, and with care, can be retrofitted to work with FBG sensors already installed on a structure.

Readers who have recently visited or purchased a newly built house may have started to notice the standard inclusion of “smart home” technologies