Anomalous optical transmission due to strain-induced optical axis rotation in optical fibers embedded in concrete

We report the observation of anomalous optical transmission in polarimetric optical fibers embedded in concrete cylinders. The optical transmission intensities vary nonsinusoidally as a function of the applied strain. We show that this phenomenon can be explained with a theoretical model taking into account the strain-induced rotation of the birefringence axes, as a result of the photoelastic effect in the presence of shear strains, and the optical transitions between different sections of the fiber with rotated principal axes in the sensing region. Our theoretical results agree very well with the experimental observations. We also present experimental evidence on the effects of residual strains in the fibers embedded in concrete cylinders after tests.

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