Plastic fiber evanescent sensor in measurement of turbidity

摘要： The construction and working principles of a plastic fiber sensor for examining the level of turbidity is studied in this paper. This work focuses on designing an inexpensive turbidity sensor that incorporates a pair of multimode fibers (MMF) that are attached side by side and their beveled tips are mounted vertically. The efficiency of different beveled angles is evaluated by simulation with Tracepro software. The reflected signal is collected by immersing the sensor head into a water mixture and analyzed for various concentration. It was found that there is a linear increment of output intensity when concentration of mixture is increased. The turbidity sensor is tested with real samples that are collected from lake, river and coastal areas to demonstrate its consistency with commercial apparatus in natural compounds. The results showed that the proposed sensor structure is able to produce reliable results in a dynamic range of detection from 0 to 1000 Nephelometric Turbidity Unit (NTU) to facilitate practical field measurements.