A ϕ-Shaped Bending-Optical Fiber Sensor for the Measurement of Radial variation in Cylindrical Structures

This work presents preliminary results of the ϕ -shaped sensor mounted on support designed by additive manufacturing (AM). This sensor is proposed and experimentally demonstrated to measure the radial variation of cylindrical structures. The sensor presents an easy fabrication. The support was developed to work using the principle of leverage. The sensing head is curled between two points so that the dimension associated with the macro bend is changed when there is a radial variation. The results indicate that the proposed sensor structure can monitor radial variation in applications such as pipelines and trees.