Abstract

A flow sensor is presented, based on the deflection of a 1 mm diameter grooved polymer optical fibre in an air flow. By measurement of optical strain in two orthogonal directions, the sensor is able to measure both the magnitude and direction of air velocity, by performing vectorial addition of the flow components in two orthogonal directions. Experiments in a wind tunnel showed that the sensor was unaffected by its orientation to the flow. It is able to measure over a flow range of 0 to 35 m/s, with a sensitivity of 0.0049 ± 0.001 units of optical strain s/m and a resolution of 0.844 m/s.

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