Design and Analysis of a Combined Strain–Vibration–Temperature Sensor with Two Fiber Bragg Gratings and a Trapezoidal Beam

A combined sensor to simultaneously measure strain, vibration, and temperature has been developed. The sensor is composed of two Fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) and a vibration gainer. One FBG is used to measure strain, while the other measures vibration and temperature. The gainer has a mass block which is used to increase its sensitivity to vibration. The main beam of the vibration gainer was designed as a trapezoid in order to reduce the strain gradient while sensing vibration. In addition, an interrogation method was used to eliminate interactions between measured parameters. Experiments were carried out to analyze the performance of the proposed sensor. For individual strain measurement in the range of 0–152 με, the sensitivity and nonlinearity error were 1.878 pm/με and 2.43% Full Scale (F.S.), respectively. For individual temperature measurement in the range of 50–210 °C, the sensitivity and nonlinearity error were 29.324 pm/°C and 1.88% F.S., respectively. The proposed sensor also demonstrated a sensitivity of 0.769 pm/m·s(−2) and nonlinearity error of 1.83% F.S. for vibration measurement in the range of 10–55 m/s(2). Finally, simultaneously measuring strain, temperature, and vibration resulted in nonlinearity errors of 4.23% F.S., 1.89% F.S., and 2.23% F.S., respectively.