A temperature compensated fibre Bragg grating (FBG)-based sensor system for condition monitoring of electrified railway pantograph

Abstract

This paper presents the results obtained from fibre Bragg grating (FBG) sensors integrated into a railway current-collecting pantograph for accurate measurement of contact force and contact location when it is subjected to various temperature conditions. The temperature change of the pantograph is simulated, at the industrial laboratory of Brecknell Willis in the UK, by changing the DC current applied to pantograph from 0 to 1500 A. This test is primarily designed to verify the effectiveness of the temperature compensation mechanism built in the FBG sensor design. For this verification, 3 thermocouples co-located with the FBG sensor packages are used to measure the temperature change seen from 25 °C to 55 °C. The tests were repeated several times and the sensor system has shown its temperature-independence, confirming that the intrinsic cross-sensitivity of FBGs to temperature variation for strain measurement has been fully compensated through the use of this innovative sensor design and data processing.