FOSA webinar: Distributed Fiber Optic Sensing for above and below railroad monitoring - AP Sensing

A joint webinar presentation by AP Sensing and Sercel Group: Distributed Fiber Optic Sensing for above and below railway monitoring.

Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) is an increasingly utilized technology in railroad industry, with a growing emphasis on monitoring rail tracks and trains. When connected to a telecom optical fiber, DAS systems offer a reliable solution for continuous monitoring, leveraging existing optical fiber cable infrastructure. DAS has already proven to be a valuable complement to, or potential replacement for, traditional rail track and train monitoring methods. DAS technology serves as a robust data acquisition tool for gaining insights into diverse underground geological processes that could impact the geometry of the track.

In this collaborative webinar, AP Sensing and Sercel explore how a DAS system connected to an existing telecom optical fiber cable running parallel to a railway, can be used for a wide range of monitoring applications above the rail track. Additionally, we will introduce an innovative seismic monitoring workflow that leverages trains as seismic sources, enabling the detection of soil decompaction and/or genesis and growth of cavities below the rail track. Using real case examples, we show that fiber optics with DAS technology can be used to monitor the near surface under railways on a variety of scales.

Lena Urmantseva earned her PhD degree in Geology from the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, Novosibirsk, Russia, in 2012. Her professional journey began in 2012 when she joined Schlumberger as a well placement engineer and petrophysicist, where she worked on a range of onshore and offshore projects. Since 2022 Lena is a Technical Account Manager at AP Sensing, specializing in distributed fiber optic sensing solutions for variety of geological and O&G upstream applications.

Helene Toubiana earned Master’s degree from Sorbonne University. She dedicated 15 years of her professional life to CGG, a global leader in technology for Earth science. During her time at CGG, she served as a geophysical processing specialist. A year ago, Helene joined Sercel to work on developing a below ballast scan solution.

For more information about AP Sensing visit: https://www.apsensing.com/

For more information about the Fiber Optic Sensing Association visit: https://fiberopticsensing.org/