B-OTDR Solution for Independent Temperature and Strain Measurement in a Single Acquisition

Distributed optical fiber sensors using Brillouin scattering have already demonstrated their ability to measure changes in strain and temperature over long distance. However, the simultaneous sensitivity of the Brillouin scattering to these two parameters is a real disadvantage during the instrumentation and monitoring of structures, such as for civil engineering, oil industry applications (i.e. instrumentation of pipelines or wells) or electrical power cables monitoring. In this article, we present a new instrument enabling independently measurement of temperature or strain using a unique fiber in a single measurement. This method, which we will call B-OTDR DSTS for "Distributed Strain and Temperature Sensing", is based on the measurement of frequency (as a standard BOTDR) but also intensity of Brillouin scattering. However, as the measurement of the latter requires an accurate measurement of power levels along the fiber, it is necessary to correct the losses by a Rayleigh OTDR measurement. The architecture of the BOTDR-DSTS allows simultaneous measurement of the Brillouin and Rayleigh backscatters. We will detail the validation results of this new device and show the interest of such a measurement on the instrumentation of a cable into a 2 km deep observation well.