Non-Metallic, Thin-Film, Miniature Fiber-Optic Temperature Sensors for Small Scale Explosives Characterization

The US Army ERDC has identified a need for fast-response temperature sensors for small scale explosions where gas temperature rise rates might be as high as 4000¿C in one millisecond (4 million ¿C/s). During the Phase I SBIR research effort, the LunaInnovations researchers were able to measure a 1200¿C rise in 0.5ms (2.4million¿C/s) rise rate with a proprietary bonded non-metallic thin film fiber-optic temperature sensor. The Proposed Phase II will continue the development of a sensing systemconsisting of the proprietary bonded sensors and high speed, 4 channel instrumentation system to achieve the design goals with commercially ready sensing systems. For explosives characterization, fiber optic sensors offer many advantages over equivalentelectrical sensors. These are: extreme thermal capability, immunity to electro-magnetic interference and grounding issues, and the ability transmit data kilometers with minute signal degradation (less than 3dB/km). This Phase II project will develop thisconcept to fruition and facilitate commercialization of both the sensors and the sensing instrumentation. The technical objectives of this Phase II proposal will further identify sensor and system requirements (materials, processes, and electronics) anddevelop implement those to meet the primary objective and will demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed development.Thermal measurement is a vast market with a myriad of environments. Thermocouples are by far the most prevalent technology for thermal measurement but are also limited in application environment. Thermocouples cannot typically be utilized in reacting,corrosive, or electrically noisy environments above 1800¿C. Miniature, inert, intrinsically safe, EMI proof, remote temperature sensors rugged enough for explosions would open the remaining markets not currently available to thermocouples such as gasturbine engine combustor monitoring, rocket engine combustion monitoring, and chemical process monitoring. Luna sees this technology rapidly fulfilling the challenging harsh environment markets of thermal measurement as well as those in heat fluxmeasurements.