Analytical Investigation of a Novel Interrogation Approach of Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors Using Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry

Abstract

This work presents a novel approach in interrogating Polarization Dependent Loss (PDL) of cascaded identical FBGs using Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometer (OFDR). The fundamentals of both polarisation properties of uniform FBGs and polarisation-sensitive OFDR are explained and the benefits of this novel approach in measuring transversal load are discussed. The numerical programs computing the spectral evolution of PDL of the FBGs in the array as a function of grating parameters (grating length and birefringence) are presented. Our simulation results show an excellent agreement with the previously reported simulation (and experimental) results in the literature obtained on a single FBG by using classical state-of-the-art measurement techniques. As an envisaged application, the proposed system shows the feasibility of measuring the residual stresses during manufacturing process of composite materials which is not straightforward by amplitude spectrum measurements and/or considering only the axial strains. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.