Abstract
Environmentally robust chemical sensors for monitoring industrial processes or infrastructures are lately becoming important devices in industry. Low complexity and wireless enabled characteristics can offer the required flexibility for sensor deployment in adaptable sensing networks for continuous monitoring and management of industrial assets. Here are presented the design, development and operation of a class of low cost photonic sensors for monitoring the ageing process and the operational characteristics of coolant fluids used in an industrial heavy machinery infrastructure. The chemical, physical and spectroscopic characteristics of specific industrial-grade coolant fluids were analyzed along their entire life cycle range, and proper parameters for their efficient monitoring were identified. Based on multimode polymer or silica optical fibers, wide range (3–11) pH sensors were developed by employing sol-gel derived pH sensitive coatings. The performances of the developed sensors were characterized and compared, towards their coolants’ ageing monitoring capability, proving their efficiency in such a demanding application scenario and harsh industrial environment. The operating characteristics of this type of sensors allowed their integration in an autonomous wireless sensing node, thus enabling the future use of the demonstrated platform in wireless sensor networks for a variety of industrial and environmental monitoring applications.
Highlights
There is a growing interest on the development of new techniques for efficient infrastructure monitoring and assets maintenance management in different industrial sectors, further to support calendar-based maintenance which is a widely used industrial standard procedure
Sensors 2017, 17, 568 monitoring and assessment of the real conditions and the extraction of results regarding the optimum time plan and actions for maintenance [2,3]. Implementation of such predictive maintenance systems requires efficient and reliable sensing devices that could be interconnected in a network of sensors collecting and handling the information and feeding this to a decision making system for appropriate maintenance actions [2]
Certain photonics technologies [5] mainly focused on large core optical fibers, have demonstrated some unique characteristics such as low cost, easy handling, compatibility with inexpensive transceivers, and compatibility for easy and rapid customization [6,7]
Summary
There is a growing interest on the development of new techniques for efficient infrastructure monitoring and assets maintenance management in different industrial sectors, further to support calendar-based maintenance which is a widely used industrial standard procedure. Sensors 2017, 17, 568 monitoring and assessment of the real conditions and the extraction of results regarding the optimum time plan and actions for maintenance [2,3] Implementation of such predictive maintenance systems requires efficient and reliable sensing devices that could be interconnected in a network of sensors collecting and handling the information and feeding this to a decision making system for appropriate maintenance actions [2]. Certain photonics technologies [5] mainly focused on large core optical fibers, have demonstrated some unique characteristics such as low cost, easy handling, compatibility with inexpensive transceivers, and compatibility for easy and rapid customization [6,7] Combining such low cost fibers functionalized with sensitive materials [8,9] is a realistic way for the development of reliable yet affordable sensing heads that could be employed as reusable or disposable sensors. Overcoming the need of expensive stabilized laser sources, the use of non-coherent
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