Current State of Methods and Means of Registration of High Temperatures and Mechanical Stresses in Structures

Abstract

An analytical review of physically possible methods and available achievements in registering hydrostatic pressure or mechanical stresses using fiber optic fibers and sensors based on them based on published works that can be used in harsh environmental conditions is carried out. The results of the review show that fully distributed or quasidistributed fiber-optic systems for recording hydrostatic pressure or mechanical stress can be implemented on the following physical principles and apparatus with measures to compensate or suppress the influence of temperature: polarizing sensors on birefringent single- mode light guides and OTDR equipment; micro-flexible sensors with OTDR equipment on conventional multimode fibers; measuring systems on fiber Bragg gratings; on discrete sensors, in particular, on sealed fiber Fabry–Perot interferometers; Brillouin distributed sensors on single-mode fibers that are not sensitive to temperature changes. It is shown that single-mode birefringent fibers with hollow holes in the shell and fiber Bragg gratings written in the core have a good linear sensitivity to hydrostatic pressure and a weak dependence on temperature. Lattices in phosphorous-containing single-mode light guides have increased high-temperature properties up to ~500 C and higher. A number of discrete fiber sensors’ structures and pressure recorders are investigated. Various structures of sensitive elements of pressure sensors on sealed fiber Fabry–Perot interferometers and fiber gratings in spherical and cylindrical small-sized cases are investigated. Sensors based on Fabry–Perot fiber interferometers soldered into a glass capillary and protected from water by external high-temperature hermetic coatings showed good linearity in the pressure range of 0…540 ATM at temperatures up to ~200 C. The sensors are efficient at temperatures up to 600 °C and are promising for use in severe and special external conditions. The possibility of compensating the temperature sensitivity by selecting external coatings is shown. Pressure sensors were tested on local areas with microbends and it was shown that they can measure pressures up to ~24 МPа at temperatures up to ~450 C, but to compensate for the dependence of the readings on temperature, it must be measured by an independent sensor. The possibility of independent and simultaneous measurement of hydrostatic pressure and temperature along a single fiber using spontaneous Brillouin scattering is shown. Pressure is measured by the frequency shift of Brillouin scattering, and temperature by its intensity. The operation of the Brillouin recorder in the pressure range 0…34 MРа is demonstrated. The pressure resolution was ~0,2 МРа. New methods are proposed for detecting Brillouin scattering – a heterodyne signal with a high signal-to-noise ratio and based on frequency modulation of a semiconductor single-frequency distributed feedback laser. The measurement range has been increased by more than 10 km and the coordinate resolution has been increased. The Brillouin scattering method is promising for creating distributed systems for measuring hydrostatic pressure or mechanical stress for severe physical conditions, including temperatures of ≥3000 C.