Fiber loop ring down for static ice pressure detection

Abstract We studied static ice pressure detection of hydraulic structures based on fiber loop ring down technology. Our detection system consists of a mode-locked laser, two 2 × 1 optical fiber couplers, a piece of single-mode fiber, the on-line micro-bend fiber sensor and a photo-detector. The static ice pressure was monitored based on measuring the change of the ring down time induced by external ice pressure on on-line micro-bend fiber sensor. We monitored the static ice pressure during ice growth and melting from −10 °C to 6 °C. The detection sensitivity is 0.00998/(μs·kPa). The proposed pressure sensing method has many advantages such as free from the fluctuation of the light power, simple structure, fast response and high sensitivity.