High visibility phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometer for distributed sensing of ultrasonic waves

• Type: Article in International Conference Proceedings Book
• Date: 2013

Authors

Martins, HF (Author) Other; Martin Lopez, S (Author) Other; Corredera, P (Author) Other; Filograno, ML (Author) Other; Frazao, O (Author) FCUP; Gonzalez Herraez, M (Author) Other

Conference proceedings International

Title: FIFTH EUROPEAN WORKSHOP ON OPTICAL FIBRE SENSORS

5th European Workshop on Optical Fibre Sensors

Krakow, POLAND, MAY 19-22, 2013

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 3 Citations

Scopus - 8 Citations

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-006-FTT

DOI: 10.1117/12.2026081

Abstract (EN): In structural health monitoring, the propagation of ultrasonic waves along a structure can reveal interesting data relevant to the integrity of the whole structure. The availability of a system for distributed sensing of ultrasonic waves could, in some cases (e.g. pipelines) provide extremely valuable information to civil engineers. Phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometry (phi OTDR) is a simple and effective tool allowing the distributed monitoring of vibrations along single-mode fibers. Up to now, phi OTDRs have been used mostly for the measurement of sub-kHz vibrations. In this work, the authors present an experimental characterization of a high-visibility phi OTDR and its performance when used for ultrasonic vibration measurements. The sensor was able to measure vibrations of up to 39.5 kHz with a resolution of 5 m over a range which could go up to 1.25 km. This is the first time to our knowledge that a phi OTDR is demonstrated for distributed measurement of ultrasonic waves.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 4