Online compensation and calibration of a chromatically addressed, photoelastic strain sensor with optical fibre transmission

An experimental study has been undertaken into the effects of changes in the spectral content of broadband light used for addressing a photoelastic strain sensor upon the calibration curve of such a transducer. A simple analysis is presented to show how compensation could be provided for random system drifts which produce such spectral variations. This has led to the design of a prototype photoelastic strain sensor with inbuilt compensation means. Some initial results are presented to demonstrate the performance of the transducer.