Study on a fiber Bragg grating accelerometer based on compliant cylinder

• A FBG accelerometer based on compliant cylinder is designed and manufactured.
• The accelerometer has advantages of simple configuration, easy fabrication, low cost.
• The sensor has good response from 30–300Hz with the sensitivity up to 42.7 pm/G.
• The applicable temperature of the FBG accelerometer at least more than 150.0 °C.

A fiber Bragg grating (FBG) accelerometer based on a compliant cylinder is proposed and experimentally demonstrated in this paper. The accelerometer contains four parts, compliant cylinder, FBG, inertial mass, shell. In this design, the FBG is placed along the axis of the compliant cylinder, the material of the compliant cylinder is two-component vulcanized silicone rubber. The principle of the FBG accelerometer was analyzed theoretically. The amplitude–frequency responsivity, linear response and temperature characteristics of the sensor were studied by experiment. Experimental results show that the sensor has a broad flat frequency range from 30 to 300 Hz, and the sensitivity of the accelerometer is 42.7 pm/G with a linearity of 0.999. The applicable temperature range of the acceleration sensor at least more than 150.0 °C, and the dynamic range is 76 dB, making it as a good candidate for the downhole seismic signal measurement.