OSMOS Optical Strand

The mechanical behavior of a structure can be understood by different types of measurements. Traditionally, the long-term behavior of a structure is qualified by topographic displacement measurements at relatively long intervals, while its dynamic behavior is subject to acceleration measures or velocity in a limited number of particular points in occasional recordings.

These approaches give only a partial picture of the mechanical behavior, because the effects they measure are only indirectly related to the development of stresses in materials, which precisely describes how a structure reacts to the loads to which it is submitted.

The resisting capacity of a structure is entirely defined by the comparison of the stresses that actually develop in the materials that constitute it with the limiting constraints of these materials. The most appropriate means of evaluating the variations of constraints is the measurement of strains, which are directly related to constraints.