Pipeline monitoring
Dredging company Jan De Nul conducts a sand suppletion on the Dutch coastal line of the isle of Texel, where an HDPE-pipeline is buried at a depth of several meters. In order to monitor the possible movement of the pipeline as well as the tension caused by the additional sand mass, Fluves installed a surrounding fiber optic sensor network. The methodology used is based on the Fiber Bragg Grating sensors (FBG), acquired from the Belgian based company Com&Sens.
Along the pipeline, which is divided in several measurement sections, the FBG sensors are attached with geotextile as well as monitor anchors. This process allows maximum assessment of the pipeline’s movement and bending and was prototyped and lab-tested with a mock up pipelining. The data-analysis transfers the rough data into deformation calculation, taking into account the elasticity moduli of the fiber as well as the PE-pipeline