In this study, a flexible vertical graphene (VG) strain sensor was developed for monitoring geogrids deformation. The VG material was fabricated using radio frequency plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition, followed by spin-coating a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) solution for film curing, resulting in a flexible sensor within a PDMS substrate. The VG sensor was integrated with a wireless Bluetooth data acquisition system for automated and remote strain measurement. The stability performance of VG sensors was examined and effectively improved through cyclic loading tests in the laboratory. The drift ratio of electrical resistance before cyclic loading tests is 37.01%, which is reduced to only 0.5% after cyclic loading tests. Calibration tests show that the maximum measurement resolution and maximum measurement range of VG sensors is 0.7 micro-strain and 40000 micro-strain, respectively, indicating that VG sensors are highly effective for both high-strain resolution identification and large-strain measurement. Pullout tests demonstrate an average error of 5.67% between VG sensors and fiber Bragg grating sensors, suggesting that VG sensors are a promising alternative for large strain, wireless, and long-term geogrid monitoring.

Industrial equipment, such as wind turbine foundations and oil and gas pipelines in cold regions, may undergo extrusion/expansion deformation during the freezing and thawing of frozen soil, which affects their power response and safe operation. Measuring the internal deformation of frozen soil can immediately reflect the strain situation of industrial equipment to reduce the risk of equipment operation. We designed a 6-dimensional strain sensor (6-S Sensor) based on fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) to obtain the spatial principal strain distribution. The strain range, linearity, and average error of the sensor were -4000 to 8000 mu epsilon, 0.997, and 2.94%, respectively. The sensor accurately measured the frozen and thermal expansion of frozen soil at different temperatures in the laboratory. The maximum frozen expansion was 6471.38 mu epsilon, which occurred in the X-direction. The accuracy of spatial principal strain monitoring for the sensor was evaluated through uniaxial compression. The stability of the sensor was verified by the monitoring experiment under natural temperature for half a month. This study provided a pioneering method for monitoring the internal spatial principal strain of frozen soil.