Optical Review (2019) 26:472–477
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10043-019-00538-y
SPECIAL SECTION: REGULAR PAPER
The 11th International Conference on Optics-Photonics Design & Fabrication (ODF’18),
Hiroshima, Japan
Development of a fiber‑optic remote temperature sensor to monitor
water temperature in a spent nuclear fuel pool
Sang Hun Shin1 · Hyungi Byun1 · Jin Ho Kim1 · Hyun Young Shin1 · Si Won Song1 · Seunghyun Cho2 · Bongsoo Lee1
Received: 30 January 2019 / Accepted: 18 August 2019 / Published online: 28 August 2019
© The Optical Society of Japan 2019
Abstract
In this study, a fiber-optic remote temperature sensor (FRTS) for real-time temperature measurements in a spent nuclear
fuel pool is developed. The proposed FRTS consists of a fiber-optic temperature-sensing probe and an optical time-domain
reflectometer (OTDR). The probe of an FRTS consists of silicone oil, a fiber channel (FC) terminator, a single-mode optical
fiber, and a copper metal cap. Silicone oil is employed as a temperature-sensing material owing to its temperature-dependent
refractive index. The optical powers of the reflected light signals (Fresnel reflection), which are generated at the interface
between the silicone oil and the core of a single-mode optical fiber in the distal end of the sensing probe, are measured. The
temperature of the water was measured in 5 ℃ increments ranging from 10 to 70 ℃, using a fabricated FRTS and an OTDR.
The proposed FRTS could be used to effectively monitor the water temperature of a spent nuclear fuel pool (SNFP) at a
nuclear power plant (NPP).
Keywords Fiber-optic temperature sensor · Optical time domain reflectometer · Water temperature · Remote sensor · Spent
nuclear fuel pool
1 Introduction SNFP ranges from 10–20 m in length, 7–15 m in width, and
8.5–17 m depth. The storage area varies according to the
The water temperature of a spent nuclear fuel pool (SNFP) amount of spent fuel that needs to be stored, which in turn
at a nuclear power plant (NPP) needs to be monitored con- depends on the type and size of the reactor [2].
tinuously since the spent nuclear fuel continues to produce a During abnormal transient or accident situations in
lot of radiation and heat, which must be managed to protect nuclear reactors, the operator must be aware of the key ther-
workers, the environment and the public. The water tem- modynamic parameters (e.g., temperature, pressure, and
perature of an SNFP should be maintained within the range water level) in the SNFP to facilitate appropriate action.
40–60 ºC according to technical specifications [1]. The Fukushima nuclear accident demonstrates the need to
The general design of a wet storage facility includes fea- further improve SNFP monitoring instrumentation to be able
tures such as spent fuel transport cask handling, loading and to withstand better severe accident conditions such as high
decontamination systems, radioactive waste treatment and temperatures and radiation environments [3, 4].
handling systems, personnel support systems, and buildings In the past decades, many kinds of sensors have been
to house the required equipment. Normally, the size of an used for monitoring thermodynamic parameters in an SNFP.
However, general electronic or chemical sensors have some
problems associated with their use as water temperature
* Bongsoo Lee monitors of SNFPs, due to the harsh environment with high
[email protected] radiation fields and high humidity of SNFPs; therefore fiber-
1 optic remote sensing is essential for monitoring water tem-
School of Energy Systems Engineering, Chung-Ang
University, Seoul, Korea perature of SNFPs and it is necessary to protect workers [5].
2 Fiber-optic based sensors offer several advantages such as
Department of Organic Materials and Fiber Engineering,
Soongsil University, Seoul, Korea a small size, good flexibility, remote operation, immunity to
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Optical Review (2019) 26:472–477 473
the electromagnetic field and radio-frequency interference,
and the ability to be operated in harsh environments such as
nuclear facilities [6, 7]. Fiber-optic sensors have emerged as
one of the major monitoring systems which are developed
particularly for temperature, pressure and water level meas-
urements in an NPP [8-10]. As a fiber-optic distributed tem-
perature sensor for SNFP various techniques such as Raman,
Brillouin, Rayleigh and optical frequency domain reflectom-
etry (OFDR) were used [3, 11]. The ranges of these sensors Fig. 1 Structure of the FRTS sensing probe
for measuring water temperature in an SNFP are from 10
to 60 °C for operating condition and the sensing resolution We have measured the optical power of reflected light
was about 0.5 °C for an OFDR based optical fiber sensor [3]. (Fresnel reflection). Fresnel reflection is the reflection of a
However, the fiber-optic sensors have not been developed portion of incident light at a discrete interface between two
with adequate solutions for SNFP applications because they media having different refractive indices. In the FRTS, the
are generally limited to be used in a long-distance. Normally, Fresnel reflection is generated at the interface between the
the lengths of the conventional fiber-optic temperature sen- silicone oil and core of the single-mode optical fiber at the
sors are less than 100 m. An SNFP is restricted area because distal end of the sensing probe. The intensity ratio of the
the spent nuclear fuels still continue to produce high-level reflected light is:
radiations and decay heats and it is very important criterion n1 − n2 2
( )
of safety to measure the water temperature changes of the
R= (1)
n1 + n2
SNFP. Therefore, dependable real-time monitoring is essen-
tial to measure safety-related parameters, such as tempera- where, R is the reflection coefficient, and n1 and n2 are the
ture, radiation and water level remotely in the SNFP [12, 13]. refractive indices of the core of a single-mode optical fiber
In this study, we have developed a fiber-optic remote and sensing material respectively. In Eq. (1), reflection coef-
temperature sensor (FRTS) based on silicone oil, using an ficients are determined by variations of refractive indices
optical time-domain reflectometer (OTDR) for accurate such as n 1 and n 2. In the case of the FRTS, the refractive
long-distance measurements of water temperature in real- index of the core (n1) is 1.46 and that of sensing material (n2)
time. Since the size of an SNFP is significantly large, and it is changeable according to temperature variations.
is necessary to measure the water temperature outside the Figure 2 shows the optical power variations as a func-
SNFP, the optical fiber used in the FRTS should be suf- tion of the temperature from 10 to 70 °C for each of the
ficiently long. three sensing materials. In Fig. 2, optical power varia-
An OTDR is an optoelectronic instrument which can be tions can be determined by reflection coefficients which
employed to characterize optical fibers and reveal fiber break depend on the refractive indices of sensing materials (n2).
locations in fiber-optic communication networks. As a part Although the optical power of HTL1.35 varies with tem-
of the FRTS, OTDR can be used as a light source and an perature, the variations are very small (0.0016 dB/°C).
optical measuring device. It is capable of measuring optical In the case of HTL1.60, there is no clear trend for the
signals generated from several hundred meters or more with changes in optical power with varying temperature. As
temperature changes. We have measured and analyzed the shown in Fig. 2a, b, the refractive indices of HTL1.35 and
optical power at specific distances of the FRTS to monitor HTL1.60 are not much varying with temperature and the
the water temperature of an SNFP at an NPP. reflection coefficients are measured in a very small range.
Figure 2c shows the optical power variation as a function
of temperature when silicon oil is used as a sensing mate-
2 Materials and methods rial. Evidently, the optical power tends to decrease as the
temperature increases, implying that the two are closely
The probe of an FRTS consists of a temperature-sensing related. Therefore, silicon oil is a suitable sensing material
material, sensor cap, fiber channel (FC) terminator, and a for the probe of the FRTS.
single-mode optical fiber, as shown in Fig. 1. The refractive index of silicone oil decreases with an
To determine which sensing material changes its refrac- increase in temperature and approaches the refractive
tive index with variation in temperature, we have investi- index value of the core of the single-mode optical fiber,
gated three kinds of liquids: Hydrogenated Terphenyl Liq- causing a decrease in the intensity of the Fresnel reflection.
uid 1.35 (HTL1.35), Hydrogenated Terphenyl Liquid 1.60 The amount of Fresnel reflection increases in accordance
(HTL1.60) and silicone oil. Generally, HTL has a refractive with the decrease in temperature of the silicone oil [13,
index matching that of oil, and can be widely used in optics.
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Fig. 2 Optical power variations according to temperatures change Fig. 3 Measurements of response times using different cap materials:
with three kinds of sensing materials: a HTL1.35, b HTL1.60 and c a nickel-plated brass, b stainless steel and c copper metal
silicone oil
Figure 3 shows the measurements of response time using
14]. Therefore, the temperature at an arbitrary point can three different probe materials: nickel-plated brass, stain-
be determined by measuring the intensity of the reflected less steel, and copper metal. The measured response times
light, which is directly related to the change in the refrac- were found to be 90, 34, and 18 s for nickel-plated brass,
tive index of the silicone oil. stainless steel, and copper metal caps respectively, when
We have also measured and compared the response times the temperature of the water was varied from 10 to 70 °C.
of the FRTS using different cap materials such as nickel- Therefore, the copper metal cap has the fastest response time
plated brass, stainless steel, and copper metal to improve the and hence is used as a part of the sensor probe. Additionally,
sensitivity of the sensor probe. due to its excellent thermal conductivity, it is also used to
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Optical Review (2019) 26:472–477 475
Fig. 4 Experimental setup for measuring temperature using the FRTS
increase temperature sensitivity. The copper metal cap used
is cylindrical in shape, having a height of 4.5 mm and outer
and inner diameters of 4.2 and 2.5 mm, respectively.
To perform real-time and remote temperature measure-
ments, we have developed an FRTS which consists of a fiber-
optic temperature-sensing probe containing several hun-
dreds of meters of single-mode optical fiber and the OTDR
(AQ7275-735041, Yokogawa Inc.), as shown in Fig. 4.
An FC terminator (30126C3, Thorlabs Inc.) and copper
metal cap were used to facilitate a simple and accurate con-
nection of the optical fiber to a temperature sensing mate-
rial such as silicon oil. To transmit the light signals from
the temperature-sensing probe to the OTDR, a single-mode
optical fiber (980HP, Thorlabs Inc.) having a core/cladding
structure was used. The outer diameter of the fiber was
245 μm and it was made from a fluorinated polymer having a
refractive index of 1.402. The core had a diameter of 3.6 μm,
and it was made of silica, which has a refractive index of
1.46. The water temperature in the beaker was independently
controlled and maintained using a heating plate (Combi
mantle, Global Lab). The temperature of the water was also
measured using a thermocouple (54II thermometer, Fluke),
which in turn was employed as a reference thermometer.
3 Results
Figure 5 shows the changes in the optical power as a
function of the variations in water temperature, measured
using single-mode optical fibers with lengths 50, 100,
200, and 300 m. These have been measured to determine
the temperatures of the water in the measuring tempera-
ture range of 10–70 °C. In this FRTS, the output signals
of optical power appeared to be almost linear with the Fig. 5 Measurements of optical power using the FRTS as a function of
variations in temperature, and the relationships between the water temperature with different lengths of transmitting optical fibers:
a 50 m, b 100 m, c 200 m, and d 300 m
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476 Optical Review (2019) 26:472–477
4 Conclusions
In this study, we have developed an FRTS based on sili-
cone oil, whose refractive index changes with temperature.
The developed FRTS consists of a fiber-optic temperature-
sensing probe, a transmitting optical fiber, and an OTDR.
The fiber-optic temperature-sensing probe is composed of
silicone oil, a copper metal cap, an FC terminator, and a
single-mode optical fiber.
The optical powers of the reflected light signals from
the temperature-sensing probe were measured using the
OTDR. They were found to depend on the temperature
Fig. 6 Variations of optical power with changes of water temperature variations and were analyzed to evaluate the FRTS perfor-
for different lengths of the transmitting optical fibers mance. Additionally, the relationships between the meas-
ured optical power and temperature were obtained, which
could be employed to determine the temperature values
at desired points. The results obtained show that the pro-
posed FRTS can accurately measure temperatures in the
range 10–70 °C and can be employed to obtain accurate
long-distance measurements in real-time.
The proposed FRTS could be used to effectively moni-
tor water temperature of an SNFP at an NPP. We have also
found that the measurement or monitoring of water tem-
perature is possible at long-distance points up to 300 m,
and it can be used outside an SNFP to avoid radiation dam-
age. Also, this FRTS has very simple structure because
the OTDR is used as a light source and a light measuring
device and the transmitting optical fiber of the FRTS can
be used durably without broken due to its very small outer
diameter. Further studies should be performed to develop
Fig. 7 Response time and reproducibility of the FRTS in the range of a distributed multi-channel fiber-optic temperature sensor,
water temperature from 10 to 70 °C with 100 m of transmitting opti- which can be used to simultaneously measure individual
cal fiber
temperature at different points.
Acknowledgements This research was supported by the Chung-Ang
University Research Grants in 2017 and this research was also sup-
ported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant
the optical power and temperature were obtained for dif- funded by the Korean government (MSIT) (No. 2017R1A2B2009480).
ferent lengths of transmitting optical fibers.
Figure 6 shows the variations in the optical power with
change in water temperature for different length of the
transmitting optical: 50, 100, 200, and 300 m. The opti- References
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