First Steps for the Development of an Optical Fibre Strain Sensor for Shallow Landslide Stability Monitoring Through Laboratory Experiments

Shallow landslides are land instability phenomena provoked by extreme precipitation events of either short duration and significant intensity or milder but longer lasting ones. Those slope failures generally involve limited volumes of terrain which could however induce significant amount of damage to property and cause casualties. In this work, we present an experimental study of the onset of shallow landslides under heavy precipitation in controlled laboratory conditions. The main objective of the work is to explore the applicability of an optical fibre strain sensor interrogated with an innovative low-cost technology. Thus, the system permits the exploitability of the otherwise costly and often unsuitable for field use interrogators. The optical fibre strain sensors were installed within the slope at different locations along the length of the plane. A second set of a more conventional optical fibre sensing system was used for a comparison. The results obtained indicate the ability of both devices to reflect the instabilities developing during the experiments and therefore encouraged the development of further investigation of the proposed sensors’ applicability.