Nageswara Lalam

PhD in Physics and Electrical Engineering

My research focuses mainly on, investigating distributed optical fibre sensor (DOFS) system for structural health monitoring, especially rail-track monitoring in real-time. Developing experimental Brillouin optical time domain analysis (BOTDA) for distributed strain, temperature monitoring with high sensing range (>120 km) and high spatial resolution (<1 m). In optical fibre sensors, the basic principle of measuring distributed strain and temperature is based on the frequency difference between the reflected Raleigh scattered light and Brillouin scattered light at every point along the fibre. The proposed technique includes, reveal the information about the rail-track deformations such as points failures, misalignments in train wheels, rail cracks, rail static and dynamic stress levels in real-time. In addition, we can also monitor the train speed, train weight, train location, train direction when the train passes through the rail-track installed with distributed optical fibre along the rail-track web.

Research Supervisors

Dr. Wai Pang Ng
Dr. Xuewu (Daniel) Dai

Key Publications

N. Lalam, W. P. Ng, X. Dai, H. K. Al-Musawi, “Characterization of Brillouin Frequency Shift in Brillouin Optical Time Domain Analysis (BOTDA)”, 20^th IEEE, European Conference on Networks and Optical Communications (NOC), 30^th June- 2^nd July, London, UK, 2015.

N. Lalam, W. P. Ng, X. Dai, “Distributed Optical Fibre Sensors for Real-Time Rail-Track Monitoring based on Stimulated Brillouin Scattering”, Northumbria research conference, 20^th-21^st May, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, 2015.