Microbending on a single-mode fiber-optic induced by sand grains for load detection.

Microbending performance of single-mode fiber-optic is examined under the pressing of sand grains. Here, a propagating laser power to represent the microbending effect in the optical fiber is investigated by measuring the output voltage of a photodetector. As the device under test (DUT), optical fiber was coated with sand grains immersed in silicon rubber for load detection. Furthermore, some load variation was introduced to the constructed detector to observe its microbending effect. The study shows that the laser power loss depends on the pressure-load increment, and the quantitative relationships between optical loss and load pressure can be well established. Sand grains of 50 microns can induce the microbending effect on optical fiber until a load of nearly 2600 kg with a linearity factor of ∼0.99, showing a sensitivity of ∼0.31 mV/Kg. Hence, the proposed detector structure has the potency to be applied as a load sensor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]