The members of NASA company have decided to offer collaboration to companies providing fiber optic sensing solutions for monitoring of structures and asset management. The fact is fiber optic sensing technology unifies advanced optical fiber sensors and innovative algorithms that allow making precise and cost-efficient monitoring of numerous crucial parameters in real-time.
The mentioned abilities of fiber sensing solutions play a significant role in structural health monitoring and tank gauging applications. The following parameters are taken into consideration: position or deformation (2D and 3D displacement, twist, and rotation), the level of stiffness (bending, torsion, and vibration), operational loads (bending moments, shear loads, and torques), magnetic fields (different defects in safety-critical structures made from metal materials), and stress/strength parameters such as pressure or fatigue and breakage prediction.
Moreover, fiber optic sensing systems enable to provide not only the structural health monitoring of a tank but optical fiber technology is able to sense the inventory of the tank: for example, the level of the tank’s content, evaporation rate, temperature (that can varies from cryogenic up to 300 degrees Celsius), and stratification (oil vs. water, sediment vs. liquid, and thermal layers).
Fiber optic sensing solutions offer numerous advantages that include:
- low cost opening new fields of application across industries;
- low power consumption of fiber sensors due to highly efficient algorithms and high-speed processing platform enabling quick data processing and real-time analysis;
- fast speed and high level of efficiency;
- precise and adaptive fiber optic technology because of the ability of optical fiber sensors to automatically increase resolution where/when needed;
- easy installation of fiber device;
- high reliability of operation even in humid/liquid environments and harsh temperature conditions.
The numerous abilities of fiber optic sensing systems create a potential solution for a myriad range of monitoring applications. Structural health monitoring and integrity, tang gauging, active control, safety and protection area, non-destructive evaluation, and medical usage refer to potential optical fiber applications.
The principle of fiber sensor operation is based on the use of fiber Bragg grating sensors that are installed in an optical fiber at intervals as small as 0.25 inches (0.64 cm). Finally, such a fiber optic sensing system allows monitoring strain, stresses, structural instabilities, temperature distributions, and numerous other engineering parameters in real-time with a single instrumentation system which weight is less than 10 pounds (4.54 kg). Herewith, the fiber optic solution is able to differentiate between liquid and gas states in a tank or other container, offering precise measurements.
If you want to obtain a highly efficient sensing system, you should choose the Optromix company. Optromix is a manufacturer of innovative fiber optic products for the global market. The company provides the most technologically advanced fiber optic solutions for monitoring worldwide. Optromix is a fast-growing vendor of fiber Bragg grating (FBG) products line such as fiber Bragg grating sensors, FBG interrogators and multiplexers, distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) systems, distributed temperature sensing (DTS) systems. If you are interested in FBG sensors and want to learn more, please contact us at info@optromix.com