Comparative Experimental Study of a High-Temperature Raman-Based Distributed Optical Fiber Sensor with Different Special Fibers.

Ismail Laarossi,María Quintela-Incera,José López-Higuera

doi:10.3390/s19030574

Abstract

An experimental study of a high temperature distributed optical fiber sensor based on Raman Optical-Time-Domain-Reflectometry (ROTDR) (up to 450 °C) and optical fibers with different coatings (polyimide/carbon, copper, aluminum and gold) is presented. Analysis of the distributed temperature sensor (DTS) measurements determined the most appropriate optical fiber to be used in high temperature industrial environment over long periods of time. To demonstrate the feasibility of this DTS for an industrial application, an optical cable was designed with the appropriate optical fiber and it was hermetically sealed to provide the required mechanical resistance and isolate the fiber from environmental degradations. This cable was used to measure temperature up to 360 °C of an industrial furnace during 7 days.

Highlights

Distributed temperature sensors based on the spontaneous Raman effect have become widely used in oil and gas sectors in applications such as leak detection in oil wells and thermal control of power lines [1,2,3,4]
This paper presents an experimental study of a high temperature distributed sensor system using a Raman-Optical-Time-Domain-Reflectometry (ROTDR) with different optical fiber coatings
Temperature Sensor (DTS) interrogator based on Raman Optical-Time-Domain-Reflectometry (ROTDR)

Summary

Introduction

Distributed temperature sensors based on the spontaneous Raman effect have become widely used in oil and gas sectors in applications such as leak detection in oil wells and thermal control of power lines [1,2,3,4] These sensors offer many advantages in comparison to standard discrete temperature sensors [5,6] including inherent immunity to electromagnetic fields and allowing remote, long distance temperature measurement in dangerous, radioactive and toxic environments [7,8]. This paper presents an experimental study of a high temperature distributed sensor system using a Raman-Optical-Time-Domain-Reflectometry (ROTDR) (up to 450 ◦ C) with different optical fiber coatings (polyimide/carbon, copper, aluminum and gold). The results obtained will allow us to determine the behavior of each fiber as temperature increases and calculate their influence on the accuracy of the measurements in a Raman DTS system at high temperatures

Operating Principles

Experiments

Conclusions