Abstract
A D-shaped polarization-maintaining fiber (PMF) as fiber optic sensor for the simultaneous monitoring of strain and the surrounding temperature is presented. A mechanical end and edge polishing system with aluminum oxide polishing film is utilized to perform sequential polishing on one side (lengthwise) of the PMF in order to fabricate a D-shaped cross-section. Experimental results show that the proposed sensor has high sensitivity of 46 pm/µε and 130 pm/°C for strain and temperature, respectively, which is significantly higher than other recently reported work (mainly from 2013) related to fiber optic sensors. The easy fabrication method, high sensitivity, and good linearity make this sensing device applicable in various applications such as health monitoring and spatial analysis of engineering structures.
Highlights
Fiber optic sensor (FOS) technologies have gained wide interest for sensing applications during the recent decades due to comparative advantages over other conventional sensor technologies.These advantages include rapid responsiveness, compact size, safety, stability, flexibility, capability for remote monitoring and suitability to perform in harsh environments
FOS are designed to collect information via fiber optics, based on the fact that alterations in a specific physical property of a medium being sensed will cause a predictable change in the light transmission characteristics of the fiber
For the sake of validation, precision and repeatability of the proposed polishing technique, three sets of single-mode optical fibers were polished until transmission power loss was reached at −3 (±0.04), −6 (±0.04) and −9 (±0.04) dB, respectively
Summary
Fiber optic sensor (FOS) technologies have gained wide interest for sensing applications during the recent decades due to comparative advantages over other conventional sensor technologies. The major drawback of the conventional method of the polishing technique is setting the fibers permanently into the V-shaped groove, which challenges the main advantages offered by optical fiber sensors, such as small size, access to hard-to-access areas, and the mobility of the sensing device. This makes the device less suitable from a practical point of view. A measurable range of 0 to 50 με for strain and 30 ◦ C to 80 ◦ C for temperature, respectively
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