Investigation of sensitivity enhancing and temperature compensation for fiber Bragg grating (FBG)-based strain sensor

This paper developed a novel method and relevant mechanical configurations to enhance strain sensitivity and realize temperature compensation simultaneously for fiber Bragg grating (FBG)-based strain sensor. The theoretical strain amplification model and temperature compensation model of the designed method and the manufactured sensor specimen were derived based on the theory of elastic mechanics and the methodology of matrices. The established theoretical sensing models were validated through finite element method (FEM) and experimental tests. The theoretical, FEM, and experimental results show good consistency. The overall sensitivities of the two FBGs in the developed sensor achieve 7.72 pm/mu epsilon and -2.94 pm/mu epsilon respectively, which are respectively 6.43 and -2.45 times of the strain sensitivity of a bare fiber Bragg grating strain sensor. The decoupling of strain and temperature was implemented theoretically and verified experimentally. The developed sensor in this paper can be used for long-term small-amplitude micro-strain monitoring in varying temperature environments for vital mechanical equipment.