Novel Applications for Microstructured Optical Fibers
Open Access
- Author:
- George, Christopher Michael
- Area of Honors:
- Mechanical Engineering
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Eric M Mockensturm, Thesis Supervisor
Eric M Mockensturm, Thesis Supervisor
Professor Matthew M Mench, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- capacitor
neutron detector
Microstructured optical fibers
heat transfer - Abstract:
- Microstructured Optical Fibers are small fibers containing one or more holes running axially through their length. They were originally developed for various optical properties, but their size, shape, flexibility and strength precludes them to mechanical uses as well. The explored applications are thrusters for the so-called nanosatellites, flexible capacitors, simple pipe flow cooling device, pulsating heat pipe, and neutron detector waveguide. The thruster design shows promise, but requires more extensive testing to determine the accuracy of the theory. A cyclindrical capacitor with an anode in the center of a single-channel optical fiber, and the cathode on the outside, has far too low of an energy density to be of use, but more complex geometries may be more efficient. Simply forcing water through the tubes results in a very highly effective heat transfer device. The pulsating heat pipe design is simple to build, but its small size makes it challenging to observe its behavior, and tests should be repeated with more powerful optical and thermal equipment. The neutron detector design is also promising, though a much larger scale test is required to determine more quantitatively the effectiveness of the system.