The two parallel outdoor penstocks of Perebella – Rosone are located near the “Parco Nazionale del Gran Paradiso” in Piemonte, Italy.
2m long base sensor on a joint
U-shape cover for sensor protection
The manager of the Penstock Perebella-Rosone hydropower plant, IREN Energia of IREN Group, decided to install a fiber optic monitoring system from Smartec to control the behavior of six joints.
The scope of the SHM system is to measure relative movements between two sections across a joint. The two penstocks are parallel and the 3×2 monitored joints are located at about 50m, 100m, and 250m from the upstream reservoir.
The monitoring system is composed of three consecutive chains of six deformations and six temperature sensors each, so thirty-six sensors in total.
Schematic Layout
Every joint is composed of three deformation and three temperature sensors, positioned at three, at nine, and noon.
Near the instrumented sections, there are three junction boxes connected by a multi-fiber cable starting at the control room.
All 36 sensors are measured automatically and concurrently; the provided SDB software allows real-time data visualization, pre-warning and warning alert levels, and graphic and table history display over a selected period.
During the operation, the client estimated movements of about 1mm per year and they should be cumulative.
During the maintenance phase, when the penstock is empty, due to thermal expansion, the relative movements of two consecutive flanges can reach 1cm.
The MuST FBG deformation sensors are all 2m long with a measurement range of 1.25% of full scale, corresponding to 2.5 cm. Therefore, they can measure the deformations in all working conditions for a long time without any adjustment.
