Abstract
Distributed fiber optic cable is in increasing demand in civil engineering, especially in the field of structural condition monitoring. The characteristics of fiber optic cable have attracted the interest of engineers and researchers in recent years. This paper describes an operational test of a distributed fiber optic cable to determine its effectiveness in detecting cracks in concrete. A distributed fiber optic cable with internal fixed points was installed in the foundation slab of a high-rise building parking lot. Strain measurements from the fiber optic sensing cable were acquired and recorded using a Brillouin time domain optical analyzer throughout the test. The main purpose of the pre-commissioning tests is to check the accuracy error of the measurements. The accuracy error at any point on the cable is defined as the standard deviation of the repeated measurement values. This will show the reliability of the measured strain when interpreting the results.