Subventions et des contributions :

Subvention ou bourse octroyée s'appliquant à plus d'un exercice financier (2017-2018 à 2018-2019).

Precise measurement of humidity and moisture has many applications particularly monitoring environmentsx000D
like agricultural seed storage, in chemical, biomedical, food, and electronic processing, hospitals, museumsx000D
libraries and generally, in most buildings. Moisture measurement in high voltage engineering forx000D
measurements of water content in transformer oil is very important. Currently the industry is relying on variousx000D
methods of measuring partial discharge (PD) to determine when a transformer needs to be serviced. Mostx000D
methods only give indications when damages are already done. The measurement of moisture in the windingx000D
insulation paper and frame allows the transformer to be serviced before damages happened, this will lead to ax000D
more robust power system and considerable savings. Among several techniques such as electrical sensors, fiberx000D
optic sensors are capturing more attention due to small size, light weight, susceptible to multifunctional sensingx000D
and more importantly their immunity to electromagnetic interference. Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) based opticalx000D
sensors have become widely known and popular. FBGs are compact intrinsic sensing elements, which arex000D
relatively low cost to produce, easy to multiplex, and applicable to a range of strain and temperature sensingx000D
applications. Recently QPS Photonics Inc. has developed a moisture sensor using two types of FBGs, ax000D
standard FBG and an advanced phase shifted gratings. This sensor was developed by incrementally applying 10x000D
layers of polymide coating over the grating area, and cured at 300 C. The coating upon contact with moisture,x000D
absorbs the moisture, slightly expands and recovers from the inherent strain. The objective of this project is tox000D
develop a high sensitive and cost effective optical sensor for monitoring the temperature and moisture inside ax000D
high voltage power transformer. This project is involved with the design of packaging and characterizing thex000D
performance of the sensor which capable to detect small trace of moisture. This would be the first time in thex000D
world that such a capability will be developed, allowing transformer owners to understand, in real time, thex000D
transport of moisture which depends on the operating oil temperature, and loading.