CN113708173A

CN113708173A - Underwater wet-plug oil-filled pressure balance connector

Info

Publication number: CN113708173A
Application number: CN202110981782.1A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 宋文韬; 崔维成
Original assignee: Zhejiang University ZJU; Westlake University
Current assignee: Zhejiang University ZJU; Westlake University
Priority date: 2021-08-25
Filing date: 2021-08-25
Publication date: 2021-11-26
Anticipated expiration: 2041-08-25
Also published as: CN113708173B

Abstract

The invention discloses an underwater wet plugging and unplugging oil-filled pressure balance connector which comprises a socket connector and a plug connector, wherein the socket connector comprises a socket shell and a socket base; the plug connector comprises a plug shell and a base assembly, wherein the base assembly comprises a fixed base, a movable base and a resetting piece; a second elastic soft bag is arranged between the plug shell and the movable base at the plugging end, a third elastic soft bag is arranged at the outer side of the base component, and a communicated second oil-filled cavity is formed in the second elastic soft bag and the third elastic soft bag; a contact pin assembly is arranged in the base assembly; the invention can ensure that the connector always keeps the sealing performance in the dynamic plugging and unplugging process, and simultaneously can reduce or even eliminate the internal and external pressure difference of the connector, reduce the plugging and unplugging force and improve the deep sea pressure resistance of the connector.

Description

Underwater wet-plug oil-filled pressure balance connector

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of underwater wet plugging and unplugging connectors, in particular to an underwater wet plugging and unplugging oil-filled pressure balance connector.

Background

Statistics have shown that failure cases in the field of marine engineering are mostly caused by connector failures. The underwater wet plugging and unplugging connector can be plugged and unplugged underwater or even in a deep sea severe environment, the deep sea equipment maintenance and the deep sea system networking are convenient, and the technical difficulty mainly comprises two aspects: firstly, the sealing performance is required to be always kept in the dynamic process of plugging and unplugging the connector; and secondly, in order to improve the deep sea pressure resistance of the connector and reduce the insertion and extraction force, the internal and external pressure difference of the connector needs to be reduced or even eliminated as much as possible, so that the connector can automatically adapt to the change of the external pressure. In order to solve the technical problem, the underwater wet-plug connector mostly adopts an oil-filled pressure balance design.

Patent specifications CN107910699A, CN110277703A, and CN111463624A disclose several underwater wet-plug electrical connectors designed by oil-filled pressure balance, but the technical solution thereof cannot be applied to optical fiber connection.

The patent specification with the publication number of CN106532374B discloses an underwater wet-plug photoelectric composite connector adopting an oil-filled pressure balance design, which comprises a socket and a plug. The plug comprises an outer shell, a plug core body, a first lip-shaped sealing element, an electric contact pin, an optical fiber insertion core, a first adapter and a first tail connecting piece. The socket comprises a second tail connecting piece, a second adapter, a socket shell, a socket core body, a socket sliding block, a second lip-shaped sealing piece, an electric contact pin and an optical fiber inserting core. The technical scheme can realize underwater plugging and unplugging, but has a complex structure and is difficult to process.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention aims to provide an underwater wet plugging and unplugging oil-filled pressure balance connector, which can keep the sealing performance of the connector all the time in the dynamic plugging and unplugging process, reduce or even eliminate the internal and external pressure difference of the connector, reduce the plugging and unplugging force and improve the deep sea pressure resistance of the connector.

An underwater wet-plugging oil-filling pressure balance connector comprises a socket connector and a plug connector, wherein the socket connector comprises a socket shell and a socket base arranged in the socket shell, a first elastic soft bag is arranged between the socket shell and the socket base at a plugging end, a first oil-filling cavity is formed between the first elastic soft bag and the socket base, and a socket assembly with one end extending into the first oil-filling cavity is arranged in the socket base;

the plug connector comprises a plug shell and a base assembly arranged in the plug shell, wherein the base assembly comprises a fixed base positioned on the opposite side of the plugging end, a movable base arranged on the outer side of the fixed base and a reset piece arranged between the fixed base and the movable base; a second elastic soft bag is arranged between the plug shell and the movable base at the plugging end, a third elastic soft bag is arranged at the outer side of the base component, and a communicated second oil-filled cavity is formed in the second elastic soft bag and the third elastic soft bag; a contact pin assembly is also arranged in the base assembly;

when the connector is connected, the end face of the socket connector contacts the second elastic soft bag and pushes the movable base to move inwards, and the pin assembly sequentially penetrates through the second elastic soft bag and the first elastic soft bag and is coupled with the socket assembly in the first oil filling cavity.

In this scheme, through setting up first elasticity soft bag in order to form first oil-filled chamber, through setting up second elasticity soft bag and the soft bag of third elasticity in order to form second oil-filled chamber, through to oil-filled intracavity oil-filled in order to realize pressure balance, reduce as far as possible and eliminate the interior external pressure difference of connector even, reduce the plug-in and pull out power and improve the ability that the connector resisted deep sea pressure.

Preferably, the first elastic soft bag and the second elastic soft bag are both provided with penetrable sealing bodies capable of automatically resetting, so that the pins are allowed to penetrate through the penetrable sealing bodies, and effective sealing is formed before and after plugging and during plugging.

When the contact pin is inserted, the contact pin can pass through the area where the penetrable sealing body is located and form effective dynamic sealing with the penetrable sealing body; when the contact pin is pulled out, the penetrable sealing body can be timely restored to the original position, and the sealing performance of the contact pin during and after pulling out is further ensured.

Preferably, the socket housing and the plug housing are provided with through holes for introducing seawater.

The external pressure is transmitted to the oil liquid in the oil filling cavity through the elastic soft bag, so that the internal oil pressure is raised to a level close to the pressure of the seawater, and the pressure balance is realized.

Preferably, the socket assembly comprises a socket and a first inserting core arranged at the end part of the socket on one side of the plugging end; an alignment sleeve is arranged on the first inserting core;

the pin assembly comprises a pin and a second inserting core arranged on the end part of one side of the inserting and pulling end of the pin; when the second ferrule is connected, the second ferrule and the first ferrule complete coupling connection in the alignment sleeve. The design of the alignment sleeve facilitates accurate docking.

Preferably, the socket is movably arranged in the socket base, a baffle is arranged at the tail end of the socket in the socket base, and an elastic piece for resetting the socket is arranged between the socket and the baffle.

Preferably, the movable base is provided with a front stop block, the fixed base is provided with a rear stop block, the front stop block is used for pressing the second elastic soft bag, and the front stop block and the rear stop block are matched for pressing the third elastic soft bag.

Preferably, the receptacle housing and the plug housing are provided with an alignment key and a key slot that cooperate for alignment.

Preferably, the socket shell is provided with a rotatable locking sleeve, and an internal thread is arranged in the locking sleeve and matched and locked with the external thread on the plug shell.

The invention has the beneficial effects that:

(1) the adaptability is strong. The invention can be used for optical fiber connection, electric connection and photoelectric hybrid connection, and is suitable for transmission of light, electric signals or energy in various underwater operations and deep sea equipment.

(2) The sealing effect is good. The invention adopts the design of penetrable elastic self-sealing and oil-filled pressure balance, and can realize the function of wet insertion and extraction in the severe underwater environment.

(3) And active plugging. The invention adopts the penetrable elastic self-sealing design, and can realize the plugging operation of two ends of the connector under the condition of not disconnecting light/power supply no matter optical fiber connection or electric connection.

(4) Simple structure, small radial size and convenient assembly. The invention adopts the penetrable elastic self-sealing design, reduces the complexity of the structure, reduces the radial size and is convenient for oil filling and manufacturing.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a socket connector assembly;

FIG. 2 is a schematic view of a plug connector assembly;

FIG. 3 is a schematic view of the receptacle connector assembled with the plug connector in a connected state;

FIG. 4 is a schematic view of the penetrable sealing element disposed on the flexible bladder;

FIG. 5 is a schematic view of a forming punch;

fig. 6 is a schematic view of the construction of the penetrable seal.

Detailed Description

The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present invention, and it is obvious that the described embodiments are only a part of the embodiments of the present invention, and not all of the embodiments. All other embodiments, which can be derived by a person skilled in the art from the embodiments given herein without making any creative effort, shall fall within the protection scope of the present invention.

For the underwater wet-plug connector, the difficulty of realizing optical fiber connection is far greater than that of electric connection, so the optical fiber connector is taken as an embodiment below.

As shown in fig. 1 and 2, an underwater wet-plug and oil-filled pressure-balanced connector includes a receptacle connector 100 and a plug connector 200.

The socket connector 100 includes a socket housing 1 and a socket base 2 disposed in the socket housing 1, a socket assembly is disposed in the socket base 2, specifically, the socket assembly includes a socket 3 disposed in the socket base 2 and a first ferrule 4 disposed in a corresponding hole of the socket 3, and an alignment sleeve 5 is mounted on the first ferrule 4.

The plug connector 200 includes a plug housing 6 and a base assembly disposed in the plug housing 6, and a pin assembly is disposed in the base assembly, and specifically, the pin assembly includes a pin 7 disposed in the base assembly and a second ferrule 8 disposed in a corresponding hole of the pin 7.

The ferrule and the alignment sleeve 5 are made of zirconia ceramics, and the socket 3 and the ferrule 7 are made of poly-ether-ether-ketone (PEEK) or other suitable insulating materials.

In the receptacle connector 100, one end of the optical fiber 300 is stripped and mounted in the first ferrule 4, and in the plug connector 200, one end of the optical fiber 300 is stripped and mounted in the second ferrule 8. When the plug connector 100 is connected to the receptacle connector 200, the optical fibers 300 in the plug connector 200 and the optical fibers 300 in the receptacle connector 100 are coupled in the alignment sleeve 5. The alignment sleeve 5 may be in ultra-physical contact (UPC) or angular-physical contact (APC). The internal structure of the alignment sleeve 5 may be a cylindrical or conical alignment structure, in this embodiment a conical alignment structure.

This application also can adopt the beam expanding formula fiber coupling mode, accomplishes the optical connection promptly through optical lens is supplementary. In specific implementation, a piece of collimating lens can be adopted to change light emitted from one section of optical fiber into parallel light, and the parallel light is emitted into the focusing lens at the other end and then converged in the other section of optical fiber, so that optical connection is completed; a lens with integrated collimating/focusing functions may also be used to achieve this.

In the socket connector 100, a spring 9 is installed at the rear of the socket 3, a baffle 10 is installed at the rear end of the spring 9, and the baffle 10 is fixed on the socket base 2 through a retainer ring 11, so that the socket 3 can reciprocate in a small range through the spring 9.

The purpose of the spring 9 is to: when the plug connector 200 is connected to the receptacle connector 100, the pin 7 of the plug connector 200 pushes the receptacle 3 of the receptacle connector 100 and compresses the spring 9 to generate a smaller deformation, so that the spring 9 generates a certain reaction force, thereby improving the reliability of the optical fiber connection and reducing the insertion loss.

In the plug connector 200, the base assembly includes the fixed base 27, the movable base 28 disposed outside the fixed base 27, and the restoring piece 12 disposed between the fixed base 27 and the movable base 28; the fixed base 27 is provided with a rear stop 13, the movable base 28 is provided with a front stop 14, and the contact pin 7 passes through corresponding holes on the rear stop 13, the fixed base 27 and the movable base 28. The pin 7 is provided with a shaft shoulder section with a larger radial dimension for installing the reset piece 12, the reset piece 12 can specifically adopt a spring, and the pin 7 is fixed on the rear stop block 13 through a retainer ring 15.

In the socket connector 100, a first elastic soft bag 16 is disposed between the socket housing 1 and the socket base 2 at the plugging end, and a penetrable sealing body 17 is disposed on an end surface of the first elastic soft bag 16. The socket base 2 is provided with corresponding shoulders and grooves for supporting and fixing the first flexible bladder 16, and the socket base 2 is fixed on the socket housing 1 through a retainer ring 18. The first elastic soft capsule 16 is made of fluorosilicone rubber.

In the socket connector 100, a first oil-filled cavity 19 is formed between the first elastic soft bag 16 and the socket base 2, and the interior of the first oil-filled cavity is filled with insulating oil. The insulating oil should be a medium matched with the refractive index of the optical fiber to reduce the insertion loss, and for example, xiamater PMX-200 insulating silicone oil manufactured by Dow Corning company can be used.

In the receptacle connector 100, the oil in the first oil-filled chamber 19 is sealed by the first flexible bladder 16, the penetrable seal 17, and the O-ring 20 disposed on the barrier 10. No seal is provided between the socket 3 and the socket base 2, so that oil can enter the space where the spring 9 is located, and the spring 9 is also protected from corrosion failure.

In the receptacle connector 100, the receptacle housing 1 is provided with an opening to introduce seawater into the interior of the connector. The external pressure is transmitted to the oil in the first oil-filled chamber 19 through the first elastic soft bag 16, so that the internal oil pressure is raised to a level close to the pressure of the seawater, thereby achieving pressure balance.

In the plug connector 200, a second elastic soft bag 21 is arranged between the plug housing 6 and the movable base 28 at the plugging end, and a third elastic soft bag 22 is arranged outside the base assembly. The end face of the second elastic soft bag 21 is also provided with a penetrable sealing body 17. The movable base 28 is provided with a corresponding shaft shoulder and a corresponding groove to support and fix the second elastic soft bag 21; the movable base 28 is limited in the plug shell 6 through a shaft shoulder thereof, and the front stop 14 on the movable base 28 is used for pressing the second elastic soft bag 21; the front stopper 14 of the movable base 28 and the rear stopper 13 of the fixed base 27 are used to press the third elastic soft bag 22. The material of the second elastic soft capsule 21 and the third elastic soft capsule 22 is also fluorine silicone rubber.

In the plug connector 200, no seal is provided between the pin 7 and the movable base 28 and between the movable base 28 and the fixed base 27, and a through hole is provided in the movable base 28. Thus, the second flexible bladder 21 and the third flexible bladder 22 together form a second communicating oil-filled chamber 23, which is filled with the same insulating oil as described above.

In the plug connector 200, the third resilient bladder 22 is provided in order to keep the restoring member 12 under oil-filled protection at all times, avoiding corrosion failures. The oil in the second oil-filled chamber 23 is sealed by the second flexible bladder 21, the third flexible bladder 22, the penetrable seal 17, and an O-ring 24 disposed on the end of the insertion pin 7 adjacent to the fixed base 27.

In the plug connector 200, a through hole is also formed in the plug housing 6 to introduce seawater into the interior of the connector, and external pressure is transmitted to the oil in the second oil-filled chamber 23 through the second elastic soft bag 21 and the third elastic soft bag 22 to raise the internal oil pressure to a level close to the seawater pressure, thereby achieving pressure balance.

The penetrable sealing body 17 used in this embodiment has a self-sealing function, as shown in fig. 5, and has the structural features: a hole is made in one of the rubber bodies, which hole is not cut through the rubber, to form a penetrable sealing body 17. The penetrable sealing body 17 is connected to the rubber body without being completely broken therefrom, which is the most important feature of the penetrable elastic self-sealing.

The basic principle of penetrable elastic self-sealing is as follows: the middle section of the penetrable sealing body 17 is a cylinder with equal diameter, and the two ends are in a round table shape, as shown in fig. 6, so that the penetrable sealing body has certain static sealing capability; a portion of the penetrable sealing body 17 is connected to the rubber body so that it can be restored to its initial position in time when the pin 7 is withdrawn. When the contact pin 7 is inserted, the contact pin 7 can penetrate through the rubber body through the penetrable sealing body 17 and form effective dynamic sealing with the penetrable sealing body 17; when the contact pin 7 is pulled out, the penetrable sealing body 17 is connected to the rubber body and can be restored to the original position in time, so that the sealing performance of the contact pin 7 during and after pulling out is ensured. The diameter of the contact pin 7, which is matched with the penetrable elastic self-sealing, is slightly larger than the diameter of the opening.

The aforementioned openings in the rubber body can be realized by means of a custom-made forming punch. This embodiment shows a forming punch 400, as shown in fig. 5. The cutting edge of the forming punch 400 is provided with a small section of notch, and the notch can prevent the forming punch 400 from completely cutting off the rubber body and form the penetrable sealing body.

The penetrable sealing member 17 may be formed integrally with the elastic bladder or may be designed separately. The present embodiment is of a monolithic design, as shown in fig. 4.

As shown in fig. 3, when the plug connector 200 is connected to the receptacle connector 100, the end face of the receptacle connector 100 first comes into contact with the end face of the second resilient bladder 21 of the plug connector 200, and the receptacle connector 100 pushes the second resilient bladder 21 of the plug connector 200 into the interior of the plug connector 200, thereby compressing the restoring member 12. With continued compression of reset element 12, pin 7 passes through penetrable seal 17 in second flexible bladder 21 and subsequently through penetrable seal 17 in first flexible bladder 16 into first oil-filled chamber 19 in receptacle connector 100. In the process, the penetrable sealing body 17 can also clean the inserting needle 7, the end face of the optical fiber 300 and the second inserting core 8 in a wiping way, so that pollutants such as seawater, silt, gravel and the like can be prevented from entering the oil-filled cavity, and the optical fiber connection is always in a clean and clean state. Finally, the second ferrule 8 on the plug connector 200 and the first ferrule 4 on the receptacle connector 100 complete the coupling connection in the alignment sleeve 5. At this time, in the plug connector 200, the movable base 28 reaches the limit position of the fixed base 27.

It should be noted that when the plug connector 200 is connected to the receptacle connector 100, the penetrable sealing body 17 can only be compressed into the interior of each elastic bladder under the action of lubrication, since the end surfaces of the first elastic bladder 16 and the second elastic bladder 21 are tightly fitted to form an effective axial seal.

The oil filling of the receptacle connector 100 and the plug connector 200 in this embodiment is very simple. The oil-filled device may be a medical or specialty capillary syringe having a bore corresponding to the bore of the pins 7 in the plug connector 200 or forming an effective seal with the penetrable seal 17. When the oil is filled, the syringe is inserted into the oil-filled chamber through the penetrable seal 17, the internal air is purged, and then the predetermined oil is filled. In order to improve the performance and reliability of oil-filling pressure balance, a slight excess of oil should be filled during oil filling, so that the third elastic soft bag 22 still has the function of pressure balance when the third elastic soft bag is compressed to generate wavy deformation.

In this embodiment, an alignment key is provided on the socket housing 1 of the socket connector 100; corresponding key slots are provided on the plug housing 6 of the plug connector 200. When the plug connector 200 is connected to the receptacle connector 100, alignment of the connectors is achieved by the alignment keys and keyways and axial rotation between the connectors is limited.

The penetrable elastic self-sealing connector is suitable for multi-core arrangement, and only a plurality of openings are arranged on the end face of the rubber body or the elastic soft bag. The penetrable elastic self-sealing can realize online active wet plugging in the true sense no matter optical fiber connection or electric connection, namely, the optical/power supply does not need to be cut off when plugging in an underwater environment. The penetrable elastic self-sealing is also suitable for opto-electric hybrid connections.

In this embodiment, the socket housing 1 of the socket connector 100 is provided with a rotatable locking sleeve 25, the locking sleeve 25 is provided with an internal thread, and the plug housing 6 of the plug connector 200 is provided with a section of thread. When the plug connector 200 is connected to the receptacle connector 100, the locking sleeve 25 cooperates with the threads on the plug housing 6 to perform a locking function after connection. The invention can also adopt other locking modes to adapt to different underwater plugging modes. Wherein the locking sleeve 25 is fixed to the socket housing 1 of the socket connector 100 by means of a split retaining ring (E-ring) 26.

Although the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the foregoing embodiments, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes in the embodiments and/or modifications of the invention can be made, and equivalents and modifications of some features of the invention can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.

Claims

1. The utility model provides an underwater wet-plug draws oil charge pressure balance connector, includes socket connector and plug connector, its characterized in that:

the socket connector comprises a socket shell and a socket base arranged in the socket shell, a first elastic soft bag is arranged between the socket shell and the socket base at a plugging end, a first oil filling cavity is formed between the first elastic soft bag and the socket base, and a socket assembly with one end extending into the first oil filling cavity is arranged in the socket base;

2. The underwater wet-pluggable oil-filled pressure balanced connector of claim 1, wherein: and penetrable sealing bodies capable of automatically resetting are arranged on the first elastic soft bag and the second elastic soft bag, so that the contact pins are allowed to penetrate, and effective sealing is formed before and after plugging and in the process of plugging and unplugging the contact pins.

3. The underwater wet-pluggable oil-filled pressure balanced connector of claim 1, wherein: and through holes for introducing seawater are formed in the socket shell and the plug shell.

4. The underwater wet-pluggable oil-filled pressure balanced connector of claim 1, wherein: the socket assembly comprises a socket and a first inserting core arranged at the end part of one side of the plugging end of the socket; an alignment sleeve is arranged on the first inserting core;

the pin assembly comprises a pin and a second inserting core arranged on the end part of one side of the inserting and pulling end of the pin; when the second ferrule is connected, the second ferrule and the first ferrule complete coupling connection in the alignment sleeve.

5. The underwater wet-pluggable oil-filled pressure balanced connector of claim 4, wherein: the socket is movably arranged in the socket base, a baffle is arranged at the tail end of the socket in the socket base, and an elastic piece for resetting the socket is arranged between the socket and the baffle.

6. The underwater wet-pluggable oil-filled pressure balanced connector of claim 1, wherein: the movable base is provided with a front stop block, the fixed base is provided with a rear stop block, the front stop block is used for compressing the second elastic soft bag, and the front stop block and the rear stop block are matched to compress the third elastic soft bag.

7. The underwater wet-pluggable oil-filled pressure balanced connector of claim 1, wherein: and the socket shell and the plug shell are provided with an alignment key and a key slot which are matched with each other and used for alignment.

8. The underwater wet-pluggable oil-filled pressure balanced connector of claim 1, wherein: the socket is characterized in that a rotatable locking sleeve is arranged on the socket shell, and an internal thread is arranged in the locking sleeve and matched and locked with the external thread on the plug shell.