Investigation of rotational motion in a reinforced concrete frame construction by a fiber optic gyroscope

This paper deals with an issue of a rotational motion impact on a construction and presents civil engineering applications of a fiber optic rotational seismograph named Fiber-Optic System for Rotational Events & Phenomena Monitoring. It has been designed for a long- term building monitoring and structural rotations’ recording. It is based on the Sagnac effect which enables to detect one-axis rotational motion in a direct way and without any reference system. It enables to detect a rotation component in the wide range of a signal amplitude from 10-8 rad/s to 10 rad/s, as well as a frequency from DC to 1000 Hz. Data presented in this paper show the behavior of a reinforced concrete frame construction on different floors. Several measurements were carried out by placing the applied sensor on different floor levels of a building. The laboratory and in-situ measurements confirmed that Fiber-Optic System for Rotational Events & Phenomena Monitoring is an accurate and suitable device for applications in civil engineering.