We have demonstrated high-precision cutting and drilling of CFRP using a 3-kW CW single-mode fiber laser and a galvanometer scanner. A 3-mm-thick thermoset CFRP was successfully cut with 100 scans at the scanning speed of 13 m/s, which corresponds to effective cutting speed of 7.8 m/min. We employed the multi-pass method, in which a laser is scanned on the same position at high speed, and the optimized scanning position shift to realize short-time cutting. The time interval between scans was less than 20 ms, which was much shorter than general time interval in multi-pass method. Even with such short interval, the width of heat-affected zone (HAZ) was controlled to 97 μm on average. Drilling demonstration was carried out by using the same setup as the cutting experiment. Holes with a diameter of 6.4 mm have been successfully drilled on a 2-mm-thick thermoset CFRP. The processing time was 2.7 seconds, which was equivalent to that in mechanical processing. Since a HAZ tends to expand in the direction of the carbon fibers due to their high heat conductivity, it is difficult to reduce the width of HAZ in all directions around the processed area. To overcome this challenge, we optimized the gas injection condition as well as the scanning condition. As a result, the widths of HAZs were successfully controlled to about 100 μm in all directions.
A multicore fiber (MCF)-based mode multiplexer/demultiplexer (MUX/DEMUX) that can overcome the alignment issue of the fiber-based mode MUX/DEMUX is proposed. Design concept and fabrication results of the MCF-based mode MUX/DEMUX for two-spatial-mode operation (LP01 and LP11) (2M-MUX/DEMUX) and for three-spatial-mode operation (LP01, LP11a, and LP11b) (3M-MUX/DEMUX) are presented. The fabricated 2M-MUX/DEMUXes for C-band or L-band, using the same MCF with different elongation ratios demonstrate a coupling efficiency of greater than 90% over each band. Finally, a 3M-MUX/DEMUX with a fan-in/fan-out device is presented. The selective excitation of LP01, LP11a, and LP11b modes depending on input ports is experimentally demonstrated.
Multi-core to 7 single-core-fibers fan-out device with multi-core fiber pigtail connector is demonstrated to apply various types of multi-core fiber based sensor. Fused taper type fan-out device and SC type multi-core fiber connector are separately fabricated on each process. The fan-out device and the pigtail multi-core fiber are spliced each other by a specialty fiber fusion splicer. Comparatively low average insertion loss of 0.95 dB and sufficiently low reflectivity of less than -60 dB are achieved.
40 Gbps optical encoding/decoding is demonstrated utilizing 8-level phase codes, 8 grating chips and 2.6 mm long
superstructured fiber Bragg grating (SSFBG). Novel refractive index profile is applied to the SSFBG to obtain highlyrecognizable
performance of encoding signal and highly-confidential decoding signal. Time-spreading optical codes are
clearly observed from the encoding signals, and over 13 dB power contrast ratio is confirmed from the decoding signals.
A Fabry-Perot interferometer with chirped FBGs as reflectors has hundreds of resonance peeks in the transmittance
spectrum and can be utilized as a sensor based on the dependency of the peak wavelengths on the influence applied to
the fiber. Because the width of the peak is narrow and the number of the peak is large, one may well expect high
resolution and/or large dynamic range in its operation. In this paper, we propose to use it for measuring vibration of solid.
We characterize the sensor for two kinds of interrogation methods: the intensity-modulation and wavelength-sweep
schemes. The sensor works well and the former scheme yields a lower minimum detectable strain while the latter gives
flexibility in the magnitude of the dynamic range. In addition, difference in finesse between shorter- and longerwavelength
regions allows us to design a sensor of different sensitivity by changing the operation wavelength.
We have developed fiber-optic distributed sensors based on optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR). This
sensing system utilizes long-length fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) and is able to measure strain or temperature distributions
with the high spatial resolution along FBGs. In this paper we inscribe a long-length FBG into Polarization-maintaining
AND Absorption-reducing fiber (PANDA-FBG) for simultaneous strain and temperature measurements. Applying
PANDA-FBG to OFDR system, we perform both simultaneous measurements and distributed sensing with a single
PANDA-FBG. In experiments we bonded the PANDA-FBG on a stainless beam and applied several steps of temperature
changes and four-point bending loads. We performed simultaneous measurements over the local area of the beam. Based
on the results, we compensated the temperature changes and calculated the strain distribution along the whole part of the
beam. The experimental results showed the applicability of this method.
Multipoint temperature measurement of the superconducting wire was demonstrated to detect quench behavior utilizing a
multiplexed fiber Bragg gratings sensor. The sensor was directly attached on the wire to measure actual wire temperature
during the quenching. Quench propagation was successfully detected by measuring delay time of temperature increase
on each grating.
Optical fiber sensors are promised candidates as sensor elements in structural health monitoring (SHM). Especially
fiber-optic distributed strain sensors that return a strain value as a function of linear position along an optical fiber have
been attractive for people in the field of SHM. We have developed a distributed strain sensing system using long-length
fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs), based on optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR). We employ long-length FBGs
whose length is about 100 mm and the sensing region, in other words the gauge length, can be expanded up to more than
1 m by serially-cascaded long-length FBGs. This sensing system has the high spatial resolution of less than 1 mm. In this
paper the distributed sensing system with OFDR and its application to SHM are described.
High spatial resolution and sensitivity are required in distributed strain measurements for structural health
monitoring. We have developed a distributed strain sensing technique with long gauge FBG sensors, which
enables to measure strain at an arbitrary position along the FBG sensors with the high spatial resolution less
than 1 mm based on optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR). In this paper this technique with a 1500
mm gauge length FBG was applied to monitoring strain distributions of a simply supported beam subjected to
bending loads. The agreement between the measured strain and the theoretical one is excellent. Also we
succeeded to identify the applied load by the inverse analysis from the measured strain distribution data, and
confirmed the validity of these methods.
Simultaneous measurement of strain and temperature by means of the polarization division
multiplexing optical frequency domain reflectometry was demonstrated. In the measurement, a high
birefringence PANDA type polarization maintaining fiber was used for a fiber Bragg grating portion.
It was confirmed that Bragg reflection wavelengths corresponding to slow and fast axes have different
dependence on strain and temperature. High accuracy simultaneous measurement of strain and
temperature within errors ±20 με and ±2 °C was achieved for any strain and temperature
conditions used in this study.
We demonstrated the optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR) measurement system with all
polarization maintaining fiber including fiber Bragg grating (FBG). We succeeded to obtain the slow
and fast axial Bragg reflection spectra individually. We proposed the novel method to compensate the
measured position miss matching between slow and fast axial Bragg reflection spectra, and confirmed
the validity of the method.
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