Humidity response of optical fibres with hygroscopic coatings and its temperature dependence

Abstract Optical fibres with hygroscopic coatings are widely used in structural health monitoring to acquire the humidity information. Water absorption-induced coating expansion leads to a strain change in the silica fibre, which can be measured by point and distributed strain fibre sensors and used to quantify the environmental humidity. In this paper, the strain transfer from the coating to the fibre is described by both 1D and 3D models. The impact of the coating property on the humidity induced strain is theoretically analysed. Since the properties of the sensing fibre are temperature-dependent, the humidity response obtained by the strain-based approach may change under different thermal conditions. The humidity response of fibres with different polyimide coatings is characterized by a commercial optical frequency domain reflectometer under different temperature conditions. The experimental results confirm the temperature dependence of the humidity response as the sensitivity of all the tested fibres decreases as the temperature increases.