NEW APPROACH USING A BARE FIBER OPTIC CANTILEVER BEAM AS A LOW-FREQUENCY ACCELERATION MEASURING ELEMENT

A theoretical study is carried out in which a bare fiber optic cantile ver beam, with no concentrated seismic mass, is proved to be suitable for measuring low-frequency vibrations accurately. Its behavior was ex perimentally verified in the laboratory and can be approximated by a v ery simple transfer function that leads to straightforward signal proc essing. Some practical configurations, with accuracies as good as 0.5% , are given that depend on the operating frequency range. The simplici ty of the architecture is highlighted. (C) 1996 Society of Photo-Optic al Instrumentation Engineers.