Simultaneous Measurement of Strain and Temperature Distributions Using Optical Fibers with Different GeO2 and B2O3 Doping

Abstract

Compensating for the effects of temperature is a crucial issue in structural health monitoring when using optical fiber sensors. This study focused on the change in sensitivity due to differences in GeO2 and B2O3 doping and then verified the accuracy when measuring the strain and temperature distributions simultaneously. Four types of optical fiber sensors were utilized to measure the strain and temperature in four-point bending tests, and the best combination of the sensors resulted in strain and temperature errors of 28.4 μϵ and 1.52 °C, respectively. Based on the results obtained from the four-point bending tests, we discussed the error factors via an error propagation analysis. The results of the error propagation analysis agreed well with the experimental results, thus indicating the effectiveness of the analysis as a method for verifying accuracy and error factors.