Opt Quant Electron (2008) 40:485494

DOI 10.1007/s11082-008-9234-5

A multi-parameter sensor system using concentric core

optical fiber
Pramod R. Watekar Seongmin Ju Won-Taek Han

Received: 18 January 2006 / Accepted: 19 June 2008 / Published online: 8 July 2008
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. 2008

Abstract We, for the first time, report an experimental demonstration of multi-parameter
fiber sensor system using the concentric core optical fiber, which can simultaneously determine the stress, the position of stress and the cracks. A high bending-sensitive concentric
core optical fiber has been used in a mesh type structure to form the multi-function sensor.
Keywords

Double-core optical fiber Dispersion compensation Optical fiber sensor

1 Introduction
Recently, the optical fiber sensors are attracting the attention for structural monitoring of
concrete structures to detect the decrease in performance or an imminent failure, thereby
optimizing the lifetime without compromising safety. Although the modeling of structural
materials that made of some well-characterized materials is fairly accurate, the use of new
materials, unusually complex design or variability in strength related factors (such as the void
fraction or the moisture content) can lead to an unexpected structural weakening, damage or
failure (Merzbacher et al. 1999; Lin et al. 2002). For the structural engineer, it is necessary
to know the pressure or stress arising and its position at a particular temperature so that early
detection of the cracks in the civil structures can be carried out and hence, some remedial
measures can be taken to enhance the lifetime of structure. In the early days, a rigorous visual
inspection was necessary which was successful only partially because of the human errors
involved in the inspection. Nowadays, the fiber optic sensors are gaining popularity in the
civil structures to detect the structural faults.
An ordinary single mode optical fiber (SMF), if used in the civil structures, cannot effectively determine the stress or strain of low amplitude because they are designed for the
low bending sensitivity. Therefore, currently used fiber optic sensors are basically the optical
P. R. Watekar S. Ju W.-T. Han (B)
Department of Information and Communications, School of Photon Science and Technology (PhoST),
Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), 1 Oryong-Dong, Buk-Gu,
Gwangju 500-712, South Korea
e-mail: wthan@gist.ac.kr

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time domain reflectometry (OTDR) based sensors or the FiberBragg grating (FBG) sensors.
The OTDR based sensors are though convenient to handle, are very expensive and can be
used to determine only one parameter along the length of fiber (Ansari http://www.uic.edu/
depts/cme/research/ssndtl/activities/6.html). The FBG sensors can be used to detect multiple
parameters but suffer drawbacks of aging, temperature sensitivity and thus a careful handling
is necessary which is difficult during the construction operation (Jung et al. 1999). However,
the concentric core optical fibers show very high bending sensitivity, they are temperature
insensitive, allows rugged handing (Watekar et al. 2003, 2004) and are therefore, the good
candidates for the stress and the strain sensor system. In this paper, we report the optical fiber
sensor system to simultaneously determine the stress, the position of stress and the cracks by
using the concentric core (double-core) optical fiber

2 Theory
2.1 Stress and strain on the optical fiber
The stress vector, T , can be defined as follows:
T = Lim

A0

F
= n n + t

A

(1)

where,
A is the area in neighborhood of applied stress,
F is the resulting force vector and
n,
t are the unit vectors representing normal and tangential directions, respectively. The unit
of stress is N/m2 (= Pascal, Pa) and it is composed of the normal stress, n (stress that acts
perpendicular to the surface) and the tangential or shear stress, (stress that acts parallel to a
surface). Strain is defined as the amount of deformation an object experiences compared to
its original size and shape. Strain is a dimensionless quantity and is expressed with Youngs
modulus, E, as (E = /).
When the optical fiber is used as a sensor, the fiber sensors are commonly either embedded into a composite structure during fabrication or surface-attached to metallic materials or
existed structures by applying adhesives. In such a case, the structures strain is transferred to
the fiber sensors via interfaces between the host and the sensor. As the optical fiber is of fragile nature, a surface coating is commonly required for mechanical protection and handling
operation of sensors. The fiber surface coating serves as the coupling layer; it also plays an
important role in the strain transfer. The strain transfer coefficient has been derived earlier
(Ansari and Yuan 1998; Li et al. 2004) which is listed below for various conditions:
(i) Elastic phase:
=1

cosh(k L) 1
k L sinh(k L)

(2)

where material parameter, k, is defined as

k=

2G coat
2
Rc E c ln(Rcoat /Rc )

1/2
(3)

in which is the strain transfer coefficient, L is the half length of fiber optic sensor,
G coat is the shear modulus of coating, E c is the modulus of elasticity of optical fiber
core, Rc is the fiber core radius and Rcoat is the radius of coating.

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487

(ii) Elasto-plastic phase (when the strain is increased beyond the elastic stage):
=1

k
(L L 0 )
1
[cosh(k L 0 ) 1]
(L L 0 )2 cosh(k L 0 )
sinh(k L 0 )
kL B
2L B
LB
(4)

with
B = k(L L 0 ) cosh(k L 0 ) + sinh(k L 0 )

(5)

where L 0 is the length of elastic region, which can be determined using the definition of critical shear stress at the coating and strain-causing matrix (such as concrete)
interface:
1
c R c
cr =
(6)
2 (L L 0 ) + sinh(k L 0 )
k cosh(k L 0 )

in which c is the normal stress at central cross section area of fiber.

(iii) Crack case (when the strain in concrete is beyond the strain at peak load, strain localization takes place around the crack):



avg top
= 1 1 + k 
(7)
max top
where 1 is the strain transfer coefficient defined in (ii), k  is the new material parameter, which can be evaluated by regression method, avg is the average strain in concrete,
top is the strain at maximum stress (can be found from the stressstrain diagram of
concrete) and max is the maximum strain at descending part of stressstrain curve
where stress approaches zero.
When the optical fiber is embedded in the concrete, the average strain in the core of optical
concrete
fiber can be estimated using the equation core =
, where x is the strain in x (core

or concrete). The power transmitted through the optical fiber then becomes dependent on the
1
1
stress in the optical fiber caused by the concrete stress, i.e., Power
=
, where E c
T
E c core
is the material stiffness parameter or Youngs modulus. Thus, optical power received from
the optical fiber under stress can be calibrated to measure the stress and strain. If the output
power dependence on the stress is very high, the sensor can be considered to be very efficient.
Such is the case with the concentric core optical fiber, which is very sensitive to the stress due
to a high bending-sensitivity as compared to the single-mode optical fiber. It has been earlier
established that if the fiber optic sensor is used to measure the strain, the ratio Length/Radius
(i.e., 2L/Rc , where L is the half length) of optical fiber should be as large as possible (Jiang
et al. 2003). Optimum performance was found to be at 2L/Rc = 10 to 40, more the better.
With these values, for a fiber of 17 m radius, minimum contact length of optical fiber with
the outer matrix turns out to be 170 m. As an instance, for our sensor we used 1 m length of
fiber (of which only 1 cm actually came in contact with the load) with 17 m of core radius
to get 2L/Rc ratio of 588.24.
2.2 Concentric core optical fiber
Recently, it has been demonstrated that the concentric core optical fibers that are used for
the dispersion compensation in the optical communication system are high bending-sensitive
(Watekar et al. 2003, 2004). When a single mode light signal is launched in the concentric

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Table 1 Calculated parameters of concentric core optical fiber (s = 1.1 m)

Inner core
diameter (m)

Inner core
RI

Spacing between
two cores (m)

Outer core
width (m)

Outer core
RI

5.2

1.449

4.5

12.5

1.446

core (double-core) optical fibers, the electrical field is either in the inner core or outer core or
both, depending upon the wavelength of propagation. When the inner and outer core modes
are in the phase matched condition at a particular wavelength (s ), the effective index slope
changes suddenly and the electrical field is distributed in both the cores. When the operating
wavelength is below s , the electric field is concentrated in the inner core, while the field
is in the outer core when the operating wavelength is above s . The bending of concentric
core optical fiber causes the modes propagating in the cores to leak into the cladding region
and a considerable amount of power is lost when the modes propagate back in the cores.
The wavelengths above s suffer very high bending loss because the electric field is now
propagating in the outer core which has a small index difference and hence the field easily
leaks into the cladding with small bending. Therefore, the concentric core optical fiber with
operating wavelength above s has a very high bending sensitivity.
Using this principle, as the operating wavelength was 1.55 m, we chose 1.1 m as the
phase matching wavelength of concentric core optical fiber (in fact, any phase matching
wavelength which is much below the operating wavelength can be chosen). Simulation starts
with solution of a well-known scalar wave equation for evolution of electrical field in the
optical fiber that is given as:
d2 E
1 dE
l2
+
(8)
+ (k 2 n 2 (r ) 2 )E 2 E = 0
2
dr
r dr
r
where E is the electric field that varies along radius r , k is the free space propagation constant, n(r ) is the radial refractive index (RI) variation of optical fiber, l is the azimuthal mode
number and is the propagation constant. Equation 6 can be solved by the commercially
available Fiber-CAD code (Optiwave) where a numerical technique is adopted for the solution of Eq. 6 along with the experimental data regarding variation of RI with the wavelength.
The radial electric field evolution obtained is used to calculate , dispersion and effective
index of fiber. The total chromatic dispersion is computed using the following equation:
d2 n e
(9)
c d2
where c is the speed of light in vacuum, is an operating wavelength and n e is the effective
index (= /k). The inner and outer core width and refractive indices were selected so as
to obtain effective index match at 1.1 m. The obtained optical fiber parameters are listed in
Table 1. Simulated dispersion and effective index variations indicating the phase matching
condition at 1.1 m are shown in Fig. 1.
Dt =

3 Experiments and results

The concentric core germano-silicate optical fiber preform was fabricated using the modified
chemical vapor deposition system (MCVD) and the fiber was drawn with the outer diameter of 125 m. The measured refractive index profile of preform using the preform analyzer

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A multi-parameter sensor system using concentric core optical fiber

489
50

1.460

Effective index

1.456
1.454

-50

1.452
1.450

-100

1.448
-150

1.446

Dispersion (ps/km.nm)

1.458

1.444
-200
0.6

0.8

1.0

1.2

1.4

1.6

Wavelength (m)
Fig. 1 Simulated effective index and dispersion characteristics of concentric core optical fiber

(Nettest P104) scaled to the dimensions of fiber is shown in Fig. 2. The cross-section of fiber
with the concentric cores is also shown in the figure. To investigate the bending sensitivity of
fiber, the bending loss was measured for one winding of fiber with the loop diameter of 2.5,
3, and 12 cm. The spectral bending loss measured with the fiber at various bending diameters
is shown in Fig. 3. It is noted that the fiber is very sensitive to bending and suffers heavy
losses even at a low bending diameter.
The high bending sensitivity of concentric core fiber (as shown in Fig. 3) can be used to
build a very sensitive pressure sensor as well as stress/strain sensor. A mesh-type structure that
can be used as the sensor is shown in Fig. 4. The structural details of measurement setup are
shown in Fig. 5. The laser output is launched into the splitter (Fig. 5a) and each output point
of splitter is then fusion spliced with the entry points of mesh (as shown in Fig. 5b). Outputs
from the rows and columns of mesh are further fed to the detector circuit using circulator as
shown in Fig. 5c. For our laboratory setup, we restricted the splitter to 1:5, of which two were
used for rows and two for columns, while one was used to receive reference power. We used
standard SMF as the lead-in and lead-out fibers. SMF and concentric core optical fibers were
easily fusion-spliced with each other and the attenuation was about 0.7 dB. The input signals
were applied at the input SMFs (via splitter) and the detected output signals from the output
SMFs were calibrated for stress. As standard SMFs with very low bending sensitivity were
used as input (lead-in) and output (lead-out) terminals, there was no problem of avoiding
bends at the input and output ends, which is advantageous for the practical conditions. It is
true that the output power could have been better if the signal would have been launched
directly into the concentric core fibers, however, then bending at the input and output leads
would have to be taken care of.
We used the laser power at 1,550 nm as signal to be launched in the concentric core fiber.
The outputs of concentric core optical fibers were detected by the InGaAs detector, which
were then used to determine the position using indigenously developed software. As we took
a part of launched power as a reference, the output power obtained from each fiber was compared with this reference which eliminated the errors that may cause due to aging or replacing
of laser sources. When the pressure or stress was applied at a particular node, or nearby to it,
the corresponding column and row showed the change in the output power due to bending
loss caused by the applied stress. The difference between the output power obtained and the

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(a)
0.006

Index difference (n)

0.005
0.004
0.003
0.002
0.001
0.000
-0.001
-50

50

Radial distance (m)

(b)

40.3

12.5

4.5

5.2

(m)

Fig. 2 Concentric core optical fiber fabricated using MCVD technique. (a) Measured RI profile and (b) an
equivalent concentric core structure of fiber

reference power was used to determine the pressure, stress and stress-occurring position at
the nearest node of fiber mesh. The position detection can be made more accurate by densification of mesh, thereby increasing the complexity. The crack in the structure causes the
fiber to break. We actually cut the fiber at particular node and the resulting crack detection
was done by identifying the nearest node.
The output power from the sensor was initially calibrated for the standard parametric
value. The variation of output power with the applied mass and stress are shown in Fig. 6. It
can be seen that after application of load, the output power at 1,550 nm did not vary linearly

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491

20
2.5 cm
3 cm
12 cm

Bend loss (dB)

15

10

0
600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

Wavelength (nm)
Fig. 3 Spectral bending characteristics of concentric-core optical fiber. The bending loss was measured for
one winding of fiber with the loop diameter of 2.5, 3, and 12 cm

Fig. 4 Mesh-structure for

sensing the environmental
parameters using the double-core
optical fiber (C columns and
R rows). The location of stress
was detected at the nodes

C1
R1
R2

C2

CN

Doublecore optical
fibers
Nodes

RN

with the stress, however there is constant change in the output power indicating the further
higher load can still be applied. The stress of about 0.035 MPa, which is the equivalent to the
mass of as little as 1 g, was detected by the sensor. Thus, with proper scaling and protection
of fibers in the sensor, it can be used in the civil structures to determine even a smaller stress
occurring in the structure. It is worth noting here that the applied stress values in the graph
of Fig. 6 represents the stress applied in a particular area and it is different from the actual
stress appeared on the optical fiber.
To further explain the point, two simple experimental scenarios are shown in Fig. 7. In
the first case (Fig. 7a), the load of mass 36.7 g was applied at C1R2 node and the power
differences at all the outputs of all columns and rows were recorded. The column C1 and
row R2 showed change in the power indicating that the load was placed at C1R2 node. The
change in power was used to calculate the applied stress using Fig. 6. In the second case
(Fig. 7b), two similar loads of mass 36.7 g each were applied at C1R2 and C2R2 nodes and
again the power differences at outputs of all columns and rows were recorded. The columns

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1 to N+1
Splitter

(a)
Laser
source

.
.
.

.
.
.

N/2

SMF
Splice

N/2
Reference

(b)

N/2
. . .

Mesh:
Columns = 1 to N/2
Rows = 1 to N/2

2
N/2

(c)

Environmental
parameters

SMF

Splitter

Concentric
core fibers

.
.
.

SMF

1
Laser
source

2
.
.

.
.
.

Concentric core
Circulator
fiber

Computer

ADC

Detector

Fig. 5 Structural details of blocks that can be used in the multi-parameter sensor: (a) Laser source to splitter
(1 : (N + 1)) interface. (b) Mesh of concentric core fibers with 1 to N /2 columns, 1 to N  /2 rows and one
reference (for power). (c) Structure shows interface of one of columns of mesh to the laser source via splitter

100

Mass (g)

80

0.12
0.08

0.04
0

0.00

60

0.00

0.02

0.04

40
20

Applied Stress (MPa)

120

0
0
0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

Power difference (dBm)

Fig. 6 Variation of power difference at varying mass and stress. Inset shows the same variation for very small
values of applied mass and stress, which proves the sensitivity of sensor

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A multi-parameter sensor system using concentric core optical fiber

R1
O/P

R2
O/P

C1
O/P

(a)
PD Output
(dBm):
-------------C2
R2
-------------0.43 0.44
--------------

C2
O/P

R1
O/P

R2
O/P

C1
O/P

493

(b)
PD Output (dBm):
---------------------C1
C2 R2
---------------------0.43 0.41 0.96
----------------------

C2
O/P

Fig. 7 Typical scenarios with the mesh-structure for sensing the environmental parameters using the concentric core optical fiber. PD is the power difference in dBm. Load was of 36.7 g mass

C1, C2 and row R2 showed change in the power difference as shown in Fig. 7b, indicating
that the loads were placed at C1R2 and C2R2 nodes. However, the power detected at the
output of row R2 determined total stress. In such a scenario, the output powers at C1 and C2
were used to determine the stresses at different nodes. When a neighboring group of multiple
rows and columns shows increased stress, it can be the case of crack formation. In a practical
case, determination of position of collective stress is highly advantageous because it actually
determines where the fault is raising. For example, consider that the stress has arisen at three
far away locations in the concrete where the mesh of optical fiber has been laid. Now all
these locations will be correctly determined by the sensor along with the values of stress.
Just to locate these locations of stress, currently building constructors have to employ costly
OTDR based sensors. Thus, in contrast with the earlier crack-detection sensors, with the aid
of proposed sensor we need not wait for the fibers to break to detect the cracks, but early
crack detection is possible by noting the stress difference and remedial steps can be taken
accordingly. With no output power at all at the fiber end, the condition is equivalent to the
breaking of optical fiber, may be due to cracks.
Finally we would like to address the question of separation of different measurands. As we
have mentioned earlier, our sensor could determine stress/strain, position of stress/strain, and
cracks simultaneously. All the measurands were determined from the output power received
with the concentric core optical fiber mesh: power difference (between received power and
the reference power) gave the value of stress; column and row interface gave the position of
stress and no power condition determined the possible crack in the concrete. However, it must

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be noted that we did not carry out direct experiments with the fiber mesh buried under the
concrete, but experiments were carried out under laboratory conditions with stress applied
at different points of mesh. Authors think that the results can still be used for the sensor of
mesh buried under concrete with new calibration.

4 Conclusion
We have developed a sensor using the concentric core optical fiber to simultaneously determine multiple parameters, such as weight, pressure/stress, position of stress and cracks
appearing on the structure. The sensor was found to be highly sensitive even to the applied
1 g of mass.
Acknowledgements The present research work was partially supported by the National Core Research
Center (NCRC) for Hybrid Materials Solution of Pusan National University, by the GIST Top Brand Project
(Photonics 2020), Ministry of Science and Technology, by the GIST Technology Initiative (GTI), and by
BK-21 Information Technology Project, Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development, South
Korea.

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