Methods for Continuously Resolving Spectral Shifts in Distributed Optical Fiber Sensors Irradiated to Extreme Neutron Fluence

Conference · Sat Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2023

DOI:https://doi.org/10.13182/NPICHMIT23-40946· OSTI ID:1994696

Sweeney, Dan  ^[1]; Petrie, Christian  ^[1]

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1. ORNL

Optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR) is a technique for interrogating distributed optical fiber sensors (DOFS) and involves correlating changes in the Rayleigh backscatter fingerprint for a fiber under test (FUT) with a reference measurement. Recently, under the WIRE-21 experiment sponsored by Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF) and performed at the High-Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), silica optical fibers were irradiated to a fast neutron fluence of 1x10^21 n/cm^2/s at temperatures from 200--400 C. As in the cases of high-temperature and high-strain conditions, such high levels of neutron bombardment result in a highly dynamic RBS that evades analysis with conventional methods. This work describes the further development and application of graphical signal processing techniques applied to OFDR-based distributed optical fiber sensors specifically deployed in in-pile applications. While the signal processing techniques developed in this work are applied to DOFS in nuclear environments, they provide a general framework for the analysis of OFDR measurements and a tangible method to yield higher quality data, without imposing additional hardware requirements.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1994696
• Resource Relation: Conference: 13th Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control and Human-Machine Interface Technologies (NPIC&HMIT 2023) - Knoxville, Tennessee, United States of America - 7/15/2023 8:00:00 AM-7/21/2023 8:00:00 AM
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English