A Sensing Element Based on a Bent and Elongated Grooved Polymer Optical Fiber

Sensors

Wei-Hua Lu²  Li-Wen Chen¹  Wen-Fu Xie¹ 

[1] Department of Vehicle Engineering, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Pingtung 91201, Taiwan; E-Mails:;Department of Material Engineering, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Pingtung 91201, Taiwan; E-Mail:

关键词: plastic optical fiber;    bending and elongation;    displacement sensor;   

DOI  :  10.3390/s120607485

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

An experimental and numerical investigation is performed into the power loss induced in grooved polymer optical fibers (POFs) subjected to combined bending and elongation deformations. The power loss is examined as a function of both the groove depth and the bend radius. An elastic-plastic three-dimensional finite element model is constructed to simulate the deformation in the grooved region of the deformed specimens. The results indicate that the power loss increases significantly with an increasing bending displacement or groove depth. Specifically, the power loss increases to as much as 12% given a groove depth of 1.1 mm and a bending displacement of 10 mm. Based on the experimental results, an empirical expression is formulated to relate the power loss with the bending displacement for a given groove depth. It is shown that the difference between the estimated power loss and the actual power loss is less than 2%.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2012 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.