New applications for FOS come about in many ways. Starting more than ten years ago university researchers led the way, but, in recent years, more commercial entities are solving problems using FOS. One example is Durham Geo Slope Indicator (DGSI) in Stone Mountain, Georgia. They’ve earned a solid reputation for providing vibrating wire (and many other technologies) for geotechnical measurements. But for some of their customers with buried pipelines, high EMI conditions made the vibrating wire technology less useful. They recognized that fiber optic strain gages would work well in this environment.

So they coupled their know how for installing and protecting electrical lead wires and sensors to the FOS sensors and have made several installations. The results are impressive. The pipeline owners can resolve much smaller movements in the pipes than ever before, expected lifetime is improved by at least a factor of ten, and installation is about four times faster.

They’ll be exhibiting their new applications at the ASCE Pipeline Division International Conference on July 23-24 in Atlanta. Learn more at the ASCE websiteand Durham Geo’s website