Double-Wire-Based Single Distributed Optical Fiber Strain Sensing Method in High-Temperature Environment

Abstract

Optical strain sensors [optical fiber strain (OFS] based on optical frequency domain reflection (OFDR) are an optical sensor with great application value and the ability to achieve distributed detection. However, both the external ambient temperature and the strain contribute to the frequency shift of the Rayleigh scattering spectrum in the optical fiber during the measurement. This means that the problem of temperature compensation (TC) must be considered when detecting strain in the environment with temperature field, especially in high-temperature environment. In this article, a method of double-wire-based single optical fiber was proposed to aim at this problem, which makes one single fiber have two functions of TC and strain sensing at the same time. The contact strain sensing experiment was carried out on the conventional standard single-mode fiber (SMF)-128 polyimide-coated (PI) distributed OFS sensor (DOFSS) under high-temperature conditions (0 °C–300 °C). The TC for the strain measurement of optical fiber sensor-based OFDR was effectively realized by performing data fusion operation on the measurement results of TC and strain sensing, and the relationship between the temperature change rate and the compensation error rate (ER) was obtained. In addition, the noncontact fiber stretching sensing experiment under ultrahigh-temperature (50 °C–600 °C) conditions was carried out for the first time, which further verified the effectiveness of the method for the compensation of the fiber strain measurement error. Feasibility especially provides a simple and effective method for the application of strain measurement technology in high-temperature environment.