Study on FBG Sensors for Hull Stress Monitoring

Vessels receive stress during their navigations as well as during their cargo operations. This stress may cause damages to the hull and may result in accidents. So the hull stress monitoring system(HSMS) is recommended in order to prevent these accidents. In this paper, we manufactured fiber Bragg grating(FBG) sensor and the model ship for towing tank experiments. The strain characteristics of the model ship on the water wave were measured through the towing tank experiment. The FBG sensors and electric strain gauges were attached on the connection jig, and then the characteristics of the FBG sensor were compared with those of the electric strain gauge. The strain of model ship was increased according to the increment of the amplitude of water wave. In particular, the largest strain was measured in the center of the model ship. As the wave period increased, the strain of model ship was decreased.