Modeling and simulation of high temperature optical-fiber SiC-based pressure sensor

Silicon carbide (SiC) is an attractive material for high-temperature applications for its mechanical robustness, chemical inertness, and electrical stability at elevated temperatures. A reflective fiber-optical sensing method using thin-SiC-diaphragm as both sensitive element and deformable laser reflective mirror is presented for developing a novel high-temperature pressure sensor. The operating principles, stress and deformation distribution for the proposed optical-fiber SiC-base pressure sensor is discussed, and the physics-mathematics model and its reasonable simplification for the optical-fiber SiC-based pressure sensor are presented. On the basis of sensor model established, a series of optimization analyses and numerical simulation about the maximum measurement scale, sensitivity, input-output characteristics and model errors are analyzed. The simulation results prove the effectiveness and soundness of this method, and gain a favorable linear operation characteristic in the large measuring-scale, and provide some forceful theoretical references for the design of novel optical-fiber SiC-based pressure sensor suitable for high-temperature sensing applications and harsh environment.