Error Analysis and Measurement Uncertainty for a Fiber Grating Strain-Temperature Sensor.docVIP

Sensors 2010, 10, 6582-6593; doi:10.3390/s100706582 OPEN ACCESS sensors ISSN 1424-8220 /journal/sensors Article Error Analysis and Measurement Uncertainty for a Fiber Grating Strain-Temperature Sensor Jaw-Luen Tang 1 and Jian-Neng Wang 2,* 1 Department of Physics, National Chung Cheng University, 168 University Road, Chia-Yi 62102, Taiwan; E-Mail: jawluen@.tw 2 Department of Construction Engineering, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, 123 Section 3 University Road, Douliou 64002, Taiwan * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: wangjn@.tw; Tel.: +886-5-5342601-4723; Fax: +886-5-5312049. Received: 20 April 2010; in revised form: 17 June 2010 / Accepted: 2 July 2010 / Published: 9 July 2010 Abstract: A fiber grating sensor capable of distinguishing between temperature and strain, using a reference and a dual-wavelength fiber Bragg grating, is presented. Error analysis and measurement uncertainty for this sensor are studied theoretically and experimentally. The measured root mean squared errors for temperature T and strain ε were estimated to be 0.13 °C and 6 με, respectively. The maximum errors for temperature and strain were calculated as 0.00155 T + 2.90 × 10?6 ε and 3.59 × 10?5 ε + 0.01887 T, respectively. Using the estimation of expanded uncertainty at 95% confidence level with a coverage factor of k = 2.205, temperature and strain measurement uncertainties were evaluated as 2.60 °C and 32.05 με, respectively. For the first time, to our knowledge, we have demonstrated the feasibility of estimating the measurement uncertainty for simultaneous strain-temperature sensing with such a fiber grating sensor. Keywords: fiber Bragg grating, sensor, strain, temperature, error analysis, measurement uncertainty  Sensors 2010, 10 6583 1. Introduction The advantages of fiber optic sensors include light weight, small size, immunity to electromagnetic interference (EMI), large bandwidth,