Light power behaviour when bending plastic optical fibres

The redistribution of light power and the radiated power along a bent section of a plastic optical fibre (POF) is analysed. In this context, a theoretical approach for understanding, and hence optimising. The major factors that affect the behaviour of sensors utilising losses in fibre bends is reported. With a brief comment on the bend loss model used, an implementation of a three-dimensional analysis for bend losses is presented, and the theoretical analysis is compared with experimental results. The spatial redistribution of the optical power in the bend is also calculated