Proceedings Article | 8 July 2003
Proc. SPIE. 5036, Photonics, Devices, and Systems II
KEYWORDS: Optical fibers, Digital signal processing, Silica, Fiber Bragg gratings, Sensors, Signal attenuation, Calibration, Structured optical fibers, Aluminum, Temperature metrology
For the last decade sensor architectures with embedded fibers found their application in large structure monitoring and proved their capability to replace existing techniques for monitoring of linear strain, temporary or permanent none-uniform strain and load, temperature, vibrations, bending, or complex strain-temperature, vibrations-temperature influences, etc. Such sensor architectures, called smart structures, use different sensing mechanisms, in one of which - fiber Bragg grating (FBG) - is applied as a sensitive element. Because of high sensitivity, absolute measurement ability, possibility to work reliable in adverse environment, such as electromagnetic fields, radiation, extreme temperature, and quick response time, FBGs are object of numerous research of leading laboratories worldwide. Some problems are still remaining in this field, although there have been some ways found to solve part of them. This paper discusses some aspects of different fixing mechanisms of FBG and provides evaluation and comparison of methods of FBG integration in sensor housing or in sensor architecture.
