Miniature FBG-based fluidic flowmeter to measure hot oil and water

Abstract

In this paper, we present a miniature fluidic flowmeter based on a packaged FBG and laser-heated fibers. The flow rates of water and hydraulic oil were measured by utilizing the proposed flowmeter. The measured results exhibited good sensitivity of 0.339 nm/(m/s) for water and 0.578 nm/(m/s) for oil flow. Experimental results showed that the sensitivity of the fluidic flow sensor is depending on the heat capacity of the fluids, where the fluid with higher heat capacity has higher sensitivity and lower detection limit at the same measurement condition. The real-time flow rates measured by the proposed sensor and a commercial flowmeter installed in the test rig were also compared, demonstrating good agreement with correlation coefficient of 0.9974.