Distributed acoustic sensing along a shallow water energy cable
Distributed acoustic sensing along a shallow water energy cable
Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) provides a means of measuring dynamic changes in strain along a fiber-optic cable and has many potential applications for monitoring infrastructure, earthquake early warning, and hazard assessment. Previous work has focused on submarine telecommunications cables, which contain only fiber-optic cables. Here, we focus on the use of energy cables, which transmit electricity from offshore generators powered by tides or wind and contain fiber-optic cables for communications with the generators. Specifically, we focus on the European Marine Energy Center in Orkney, Eday, U.K., a tidal power station. Energy cables fluctuate in temperature due to energy transmission, and there is strong wave action and tidal flows, which all generate noise for DAS. We show that noise levels vary along the cable during a time with no energy transmission, but many phenomena reported on telecommunication cables are still observable, including ocean waves and nearby small vessels. The character of the small vessel signals in frequency band energy plots varies along the cable length, in some areas exhibiting multiple frequency band energy peaks. This variation is diagnostic of the burial state of the cable. Knowing the burial state of energy cables is important for understanding the mechanical protection of the system for minimizing thermal interactions with the surrounding environments and ecosystems.
Optical fibers, optical fiber applications, underwater acoustics
1772-1781
Harmon, Nicholas
10d11a16-b8b0-4132-9354-652e72d8e830
Belal, Mohammed
468117b2-0929-47dc-871c-719fe14a3839
Mangriotis, Maria-Daphne
6de3f678-7d4d-43af-8b4d-0fad48f9493f
Spingys, Carl
8afecaad-9a5a-4713-949c-b47501498363
Rychert, Catherine A.
70cf1e3a-58ea-455a-918a-1d570c5e53c5
July 2025
Harmon, Nicholas
10d11a16-b8b0-4132-9354-652e72d8e830
Belal, Mohammed
468117b2-0929-47dc-871c-719fe14a3839
Mangriotis, Maria-Daphne
6de3f678-7d4d-43af-8b4d-0fad48f9493f
Spingys, Carl
8afecaad-9a5a-4713-949c-b47501498363
Rychert, Catherine A.
70cf1e3a-58ea-455a-918a-1d570c5e53c5
Harmon, Nicholas, Belal, Mohammed, Mangriotis, Maria-Daphne, Spingys, Carl and Rychert, Catherine A.
(2025)
Distributed acoustic sensing along a shallow water energy cable.
IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, 50 (3), .
(doi:10.1109/JOE.2024.3523363).
Abstract
Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) provides a means of measuring dynamic changes in strain along a fiber-optic cable and has many potential applications for monitoring infrastructure, earthquake early warning, and hazard assessment. Previous work has focused on submarine telecommunications cables, which contain only fiber-optic cables. Here, we focus on the use of energy cables, which transmit electricity from offshore generators powered by tides or wind and contain fiber-optic cables for communications with the generators. Specifically, we focus on the European Marine Energy Center in Orkney, Eday, U.K., a tidal power station. Energy cables fluctuate in temperature due to energy transmission, and there is strong wave action and tidal flows, which all generate noise for DAS. We show that noise levels vary along the cable during a time with no energy transmission, but many phenomena reported on telecommunication cables are still observable, including ocean waves and nearby small vessels. The character of the small vessel signals in frequency band energy plots varies along the cable length, in some areas exhibiting multiple frequency band energy peaks. This variation is diagnostic of the burial state of the cable. Knowing the burial state of energy cables is important for understanding the mechanical protection of the system for minimizing thermal interactions with the surrounding environments and ecosystems.
Text
Paper7_bm_cs_mm_joe_R1_NOTC
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
e-pub ahead of print date: 1 April 2025
Published date: July 2025
Keywords:
Optical fibers, optical fiber applications, underwater acoustics
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 502454
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/502454
ISSN: 1558-1691
PURE UUID: 552f91bc-e17a-4eb4-8503-0ab07386b1f0
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Date deposited: 26 Jun 2025 17:02
Last modified: 04 Sep 2025 02:22
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Contributors
Author:
Mohammed Belal
Author:
Maria-Daphne Mangriotis
Author:
Carl Spingys
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