Experimental and simulation study on thermal gas flowmeter based on fiber Bragg grating coated with silver film

•The silver-coated FBG fiber flowmeter was a kind of hot-wire flowmeter based on heat transfer from sensors to the environment.•The proposed flowmeter was first successfully applied to the pipe gas flow measurement.•The proposed flowmeter was achieved with a gas flow detection limit of ∼0.178m3/h in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sensors and actuators. A. Physical. 2015-06, Vol.228, p.23-27
Main Authors: Cheng, Jia, Zhu, Wenjun, Huang, Zhenwei, Hu, Pengbing
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bragg gratings
Coating
Fiber Bragg grating
Fibers
Flow rate measurement
Flowmeters
Gas flow
Mathematical models
Sensors
Simulation
Wavelengths
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Summary:•The silver-coated FBG fiber flowmeter was a kind of hot-wire flowmeter based on heat transfer from sensors to the environment.•The proposed flowmeter was first successfully applied to the pipe gas flow measurement.•The proposed flowmeter was achieved with a gas flow detection limit of ∼0.178m3/h in the range up to 32m3/h. An optical fiber thermal gas flowmeter based on a core-offset fiber Bragg grating (FBG) has been proposed and demonstrated for low-rate gas flow measurement. Light from a pump laser within the fiber was coupled by the core-offset structure into the downstream fiber cladding and was absorbed by the silver layer coated on the fiber surface over the FBG. The FBG was heated by this absorption and the produced heat would be partially taken away as air flowed by, which caused a Bragg wavelength shift with a dependence on the air flow rate. A stainless steel capillary tube with a convection slot was designed for encapsulation of the FBG sensor to increase its mechanical strength and usage durability. We modeled the heated fiber flowmeter to acquire the temperature fields at various flow velocities by using the finite element modeling (FEM) method, and calibrated the flowmeter with a Standard Bell Prover. Experimental results revealed a monotonous power function relationship between the gas flow and the Bragg wavelength with a fitting error less than 3% and a gas flow detection limit of ∼0.178m3/h in a range up to 32m3/h. Moreover, the proposed flowmeter is of high security, easy-integration and low cost.
ISSN:0924-4247
1873-3069
DOI:10.1016/j.sna.2015.02.033