Fiber-optic sensors for application in engineering mechanics

In this paper we discuss several particular topologies of the fiber-optic absolute pressure transducers developed recently at the Laboratory of Optoelectronics at UQAH with a view to satisfying the requirements for use in general purpose pressure measurements, and for load distribution measurements in large engineering structures. The sensing effect is based on induced birefringence modulation occurring in highly birefringent (HE) optical fibers under the influence of hydrostatic pressure. The presented transducers were developed in polarimetric and in white light interferometric temperature self-compensating optical configurations, neither of which required any additional electronic network compensation against the temperature artifact.