Fiber-optic Sensor System for Multi-point Pressure and Temperature Measurement

Nuclear safety and public acceptance of nuclear energy are of paramount importance for the government to establish and expand the nuclear power program. Although nuclear accidents are rare, they can lead to catastrophic consequences and severe damages in the public confidence and acceptance in nuclear energy. To improve the safety, one of the main tasks is to provide various reliable diagnostic or monitoring tools in the nuclear power plant. These tools are also important to ensure the plant is operating in the optimized conditions for increased efficiency and availability. Temperature and pressure sensors are playing a critical role in control systems of current nuclear power plants. Current sensors are electronic devices, and exposure to radiation and high temperature often lead to a significant degradation in accuracy and service life. In addition, as the new generation of nuclear reactor is coming online, they impose more stringent requirement on the accuracy and resolution of sensors. Conventional temperature and pressure sensors cannot fully meet the needs of the fast-growing nuclear energy industry. The goal of this project is to develop a high-accuracy, low-cost hybrid fiber-optic sensor system for multi-point pressure and temperature measurement in nuclear power plants. Compared with other fiber-optic sensor technologies for operation in nuclear plants, the sensors developed in this program can simultaneously measure both pressure and temperature and have much higher measurement resolutions for both parameters. The proposed sensor system also uses a novel in situ calibration method for pressure measurement that will eliminate the radiation-induced drift of sensor.