In this paper, a novel pendulum-type accelerometer based on hetero-core fiber optics has been proposed for structural health monitoring targeting large-scale civil infrastructures. Vibration measurement is a non-destructive method for diagnosing the failure of structures by assessing natural frequencies and other vibration patterns. The hetero-core fiber optic sensor utilized in the proposed accelerometer can serve as a displacement sensor with robustness to temperature changes, in addition to immunity to electromagnetic interference and chemical corrosions. Thus, the hetero-core sensor inside the accelerometer measures applied acceleration by detecting the rotation of an internal pendulum. A series of experiments showed that the hetero-core fiber sensor linearly responded to the rotation angle of the pendulum ranging within (-6°, 4°), and furthermore the proposed accelerometer could reproduce the waveform of input vibration in a frequency band of several Hz order.
Keywords: accelerometer; fiber optic sensor; hetero-core; low-frequency vibration measurement; structural health monitoring.