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Whitten Lee Schulz

Eric Udd

Sean G Calvert

M Wesley Kunzler

W Marley Kunzler

A fiber grating environmental sensing system is described that has the ability to measure strain, vibration, humidity and water content. Fiber gratings are used to measure axial strain to accomplish these goals. An approach is described that uses matched fiber grating sensors and filters to allow for thermal compensation greatly reducing one of the key performance issues facing these systems. The system may be deployed in such applications as roadways and paved surfaces, bridges, buildings and aircraft and spacecraft. Means are described to implement transducers optimized for specific environmental measurements as well as means to demodulate the fiber grating sensors.

Fiber grating environmental sensing system

Fiber grating environmental measurement systems are comprised of sensors that are configured to respond to changes in moisture or chemical content of the surrounding medium through the action of coatings and plates inducing strain that is measured. These sensors can also be used to monitor the interior of bonds for degradation due to aging, cracking, or chemical attack. Means to multiplex these sensors at high speed and with high sensitivity can be accomplished by using spectral filters placed to correspond to each fiber grating environmental sensor. By forming networks of spectral elements and using wavelength division multiplexing arrays of fiber grating sensors may be processed in a single fiber line allowing distributed high sensitivity, high bandwidth fiber optic grating environmental sensor systems to be realized.

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Fairview, OR, United States of America

Whitten Lee Schulz