Comparison of macrobend seismic optical fiber accelerometer and ferrule-top cantilever fiber sensor for vibration monitoring

Abstract

The paper presents the exemplary application and comparison of a macrobend seismic optical fiber accelerometer and ferrule-top cantilever fiber sensor for long distance vibration monitoring with use of typical telecommunication optical transmission systems including optical fibers, transmitters and receivers. Use of telecommunication optical systems allows developing cost-effective monitoring and sensing architecture. All-optical fiber sensors do not create any fire hazard due to transmitting low power light through the optical fibers and lack of electrically driven parts in sensing part. Optical fiber macrobend seismic sensor consists of single mode optical fiber bended into a loop of radius around few millimeters with attached small seismic mass around 0.3 grams. We achieve signal that is proportional to the geometrical deformation of the loop. The ferrule-top cantilever (made by Optics11 - Amsterdam, Netherlands) optical fiber sensor is fabricated on a rectangular 3 mm x 3mm x 7 mm glass ferrule equipped with a central borehole and laser curved cantilever with dimensions of 200 microns wide, 30 microns thick and around 3 mm long. Construction allows measuring bending of the cantilever. Both optical fiber sensors in this setup measure force and acceleration similar to the piezoelectric accelerometers. The advantage of these devices is insensitivity to electromagnetic interference because of all-optical sensor head. We compared parameters and measurement capabilities of both sensor types.