NEW OPTICAL SENSOR SUITE FOR ULTRAHIGH TEMPERATURE FOSSIL FUEL APPLICATIONS

Accomplishments during the Phase I of a program to develop and demonstrate technology for the instrumentation of advanced powerplants are described. Engineers from Prime Research, LC and Babcock and Wilcox Research Center collaborated to generate a list of potential applications for robust photonic sensors in existing and future boiler plants. From that list, three applications were identified as primary candidates for initial development and demonstration of high-temperature sensors in an ultrasupercritical power plant. A matrix of potential fiber optic sensor approaches was derived, and a data set of specifications for high-temperature optical fiber was produced. Several fiber optic sensor configurations, including interferometric (extrinsic and intrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometer), gratings (fiber Bragg gratings and long period gratings), and microbend sensors, were evaluated in the laboratory. In addition, progress was made in the development of materials and methods to apply high-temperature optical claddings to sapphire fibers, in order to improve their optical waveguiding properties so that they can be used in the design and fabrication of high-temperature sensors. Through refinements in the processing steps, the quality of the interface between core and cladding of the fibers was improved, which is expected to reduce scattering and attenuation in the fibers. Numerical aperture measurements of both clad and unclad sapphire fibers were obtained and used to estimate the reduction in mode volume afforded by the cladding. High-temperature sensors based on sapphire fibers were also investigated. The fabrication of an intrinsic Fabry-Perot cavity within sapphire fibers was attempted by the bulk diffusion of magnesium oxide into short localized segments of longer sapphire fibers. Fourier analysis of the fringes that resulted when the treated fiber was interrogated by a swept laser spectrometer suggested that an intrinsic cavity had been formed in the fiber. Also, an unclad sapphire fiber was tested as a temperature sensor at moderate temperatures (up to 775 C)