Design and Analysis of a Combined FBG Sensor for the Measurement of Three Parameters

Abstract

A new fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor that can measure temperature, vibration, and strain is proposed in this article. The structure of this sensor is designed and optimized via theoretical analysis and the finite-element method (FEM). With an innovatively designed L-shaped cantilever (LSC), this designed sensor can better balance the vibration measurement sensitivity and the resonant frequency. The strain measurement structure is designed as a hollow square so that the reaction force of the sensor for the measured object is only 2.76×10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-3</sup> N/ με, which ensures that the strain distribution of the measured object is not affected. The designed sensor can significantly amplify the measured strain with a measurement sensitivity (5.44 pm/ με) that is four times greater than that of the bare FBGs. This article uses single-mode FBGs inscribed by a femtosecond laser (FS-FBG) to make the sensors, and the sensing performance is analyzed. The results show that this FS-FBG-based sensor can withstand temperatures up to 1100 °C.