Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometer Distributed Sensing Using Microstructured Pure Silica Optical Fibers Under Radiations

S. Rizzolo (1) , A. Boukenter (1) , T. Allanche (1) , J. Périsse (2) , G. Bouwmans (3) , H. El Hamzaoui (3) , L. Bigot (3) , Y. Ouerdane (1) , M. Cannas (4) , M. Bouazaoui (3) , J.-R. Macé (2) , S. Bauer (2) , S. Girard (1)

1 LHC - Laboratoire Hubert Curien
2 AREVA NP
3 PhLAM - Laboratoire de Physique des Lasers, Atomes et Molécules - UMR 8523
4 Università degli studi di Palermo - University of Palermo

We investigated the capability of micro-structured optical fibers to develop multi-functional, remotely-controlled, Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry (OFDR) distributed fiber based sensors to monitor temperature in nuclear power plants or high energy physics facilities. As pure-silica-core fibers are amongst the most radiation resistant waveguides, we characterized the response of two fibers with the same microstructure, one possessing a core elaborated with F300 Heraeus rod representing the state-of-the art for such fiber technology and one innovative sample based on pure sol-gel silica. Our measurements reveal that the Xray radiations do not affect the capacity of the OFDR sensing using these fibers to monitor the temperature up to 1 MGy dose whereas the sensing distance remains affected by RIA phenomena.

Mots clés: Rayleigh; Optical fiber sensors; Radiation; Rayleigh scattering

Domaines: Optique / photonique

S. Rizzolo, A. Boukenter, T. Allanche, J. Périsse, G. Bouwmans, et al.. Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometer Distributed Sensing Using Microstructured Pure Silica Optical Fibers Under Radiations. IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, 2016, 63 (4), pp.2038-2045. ⟨10.1109/TNS.2016.2519238⟩. ⟨hal-01357310⟩