Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

This project deals with the development of practical, rugged, and cost-effective optical fibre sensors for use in the Oil and Gas industry, both for exploration and exploitation purposes. The sensors are based on discoveries made in the Advanced Photonic Components group at Carleton over the last four years: they consist of specially tailored reflective gratings imprinted into the core of standard optical fibres. In collaboration with industrial partner LxData, we will customize the grating properties and materials for for the harsh environments found deep under the earth surface, in order to develop new families of combined temperature and pressure monitors. These monitors will be used in two main areas: optimizing the oil extraction processes from tar sands and improving the seismic sounding techniques used to locate new oil and gas underground reserves.