Aim: Heat of hydration and seepages monitoring.

Technologies: Distributed Temperature Sensor

Description: In normal operating conditions a dam has its specific internal temperature field, which can be affected by significant fluctuations if any seepage occurs. A distributed temperature sensor can be effectively used in the detection of these thermal anomalies. Through active or passive methods based on thermal gradient and heat up transients, the extension of a leakage can be estimating by means of the time lag and the magnitude of the temperature fluctuations.
The spatially continuous thermal behavior overcomes the limitations of the traditional sensors due to their punctual localization, ensuring a high information density along the structure, and the capability to be embeddable in the structure offers also new scenarios in monitoring the concrete maturity during the construction.
Based on the same principles, also retrofit operations on already built structures can be implemented, e.g. for the detection of the overflowing of rivers with a sensing cable laid along the embankments.