JP2000147339A - Split type coated optical fiber ribbon - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To substantially prevent the occurrence of the exposing and spilling of coated fibers at the time of splitting of a split type coated optical fiber ribbon formed by lining up plural sheets of coated optical fiber ribbon units in parallel and connecting these units by using a UV curing type resin. SOLUTION: Two sheets of the coated optical fiber ribbon units formed by arraying four pieces of the colored and coated optical fibers 2a to 2d and 3a to 3d having coloring layers 8 consisting of the UV curing type resin on the outer periphery of protective coating layers 7 and integrating these fibers with integral coating resins 4 and 5 consisting of the UV curing type resin are connected by the resin 6 for connection. In such case, the coloring layers of the adjacent coated optical fibers 2d and 3d are so formed that the carbon- carbon residual double bond concentration attains >=15%, by which the adhesion property is enhanced.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a tape-shaped optical fiber core unit in which a plurality of optical fiber cores are arranged in parallel and integrated with a collective coating resin. Also, the present invention relates to a split-type optical fiber ribbon that can be divided into individual optical fiber ribbon units.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, the demand for multi-core optical fiber cables has increased, and tape-shaped optical fiber cores that are advantageous for multi-core use have been used. There is also a tendency for the number of tape-shaped optical fiber cores to increase, and in order to facilitate the handling, a plurality of tape-shaped optical fiber cores are integrated and individual tape-shaped optical fiber cores are integrated. There has been proposed a split-type optical fiber ribbon that can be divided into two.

[0003] For example, in a tape-shaped optical fiber core described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-166808, the tape thickness of the tape-shaped optical fiber core is reduced to the same thickness as the outer diameter of the optical fiber, and the tape-shaped optical fiber is reduced. The adhesive strength between the surface of the optical fiber and the package is set to 5 to 1 at 90 ° T-peel strength so that the optical fiber can be easily divided by twisting the optical fiber.
00g. However, in this optical fiber ribbon, twisting the optical fiber ribbon may cause a distortion at the coating interface, which may cause breakage.

[0004] Further, in the tape-shaped optical fiber ribbon described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-138518, in order to easily divide the tape-shaped optical fiber ribbon, a tape-shaped optical fiber ribbon with a connecting material having a different elongation rate is used. By connecting the optical fiber cores, the elongation of the connecting material is selected to be smaller than the elongation of the core coating layer. There are no considerations. However, in this optical fiber ribbon,
Since the elongation rate of the connecting member is small, there is a problem that when an external force that causes bending is applied, a crack is easily generated at the connecting member.

In the tape-shaped optical fiber core described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-197767, a plurality of optical fiber cores are arranged in parallel and integrated by a batch coating resin made of an ultraviolet curing resin. Optical fiber 5
Are arranged side by side, and the adhesive strength, Young's modulus, and elongation of the collective coating resin and the connecting resin in the splittable tape-shaped optical fiber cores Considerations have been made to define the rate and facilitate splitting. However, these adhesion, Young's modulus,
It is difficult to design the properties of the resin material so that the elongation percentage satisfies the specified value, and it is more difficult to design the resin material particularly when the composition of the inner layer material is unknown.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and has been made in consideration of the above circumstances, and has a single optical fiber core having a colored optical fiber core and integrally formed with a batch coating resin. Wire as a tape-shaped optical fiber core unit,
When a plurality of units are arranged in parallel and divided into tape-shaped optical fiber core units by a split type tape-shaped optical fiber core unit connected by a connecting resin made of an ultraviolet curable resin, the optical fiber colored core is collectively coated from the resin. It is an object of the present invention to provide a split-type optical fiber ribbon that can be divided without peeling or spilling.

[0007]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, a plurality of optical fiber cores provided with a protective coating layer made of an ultraviolet-curable resin are arranged and collectively covered with an ultraviolet-curable resin. A plurality of tape-shaped optical fiber core units integrated by a resin are further arranged in parallel, and the divided tape-type optical fiber cores connected by a connecting resin made of an ultraviolet curable resin, wherein the tape-shaped optical fiber core is The optical fiber core wires arranged at at least one end of the unit are provided with a colored layer made of an ultraviolet curable resin on the outer periphery of the protective coating layer, and when connected with a connecting resin, have another tape shape. The coloring layer of the optical fiber core coated with the coloring layer on the side adjacent to the optical fiber core unit has a carbon-carbon residual double bond concentration of 15% or more. It is intended.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided an optical fiber core having a protective coating layer made of an ultraviolet-curable resin, and a colored layer made of an ultraviolet-curable resin provided on the outer periphery of the protective coating layer. A plurality of tape-shaped optical fiber core units integrated with a batch coating resin made of an ultraviolet-curable resin are further arranged in parallel, and a plurality of units are further arranged in parallel, and divided by a connecting resin made of an ultraviolet-curable resin. In the tape-shaped optical fiber core wire, of the optical fiber core wires arranged at both ends of the tape-shaped optical fiber core unit, the side adjacent to another tape-shaped optical fiber core unit when connected by a connecting resin. Is characterized in that the carbon-carbon residual double bond concentration is 15% or more.

[0009]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 is a view for explaining a basic structure of an example of an embodiment of a split-type tape-shaped optical fiber core according to the present invention, and FIG. FIG. 1B is a cross-sectional view of the optical fiber core wire. In the figure, 1 is a split type optical fiber ribbon,
Reference numerals 2 and 3 denote tape-shaped optical fiber core units, 2a and 2
b, 2c, 2d, 3a, 3b, 3c, 3d are optical fiber core wires, 4, 5 are collectively coated resins, 6 is a coupling resin, 6 is a glass fiber, 7 is a protective coating layer, and 8 is a colored layer. .

In this embodiment, a split-type optical fiber ribbon 1 is formed by connecting two pieces of a 4-core optical fiber core 2, 3 as a tape-type optical fiber core unit. However, the number of cores of one tape-shaped optical fiber core and the number of connected tape-shaped optical fiber core units are not limited to this embodiment, but may be any suitable number other than the number described above. Good. Also, the number of cores of the tape-shaped optical fibers to be connected may not be all the same, and even if the tape-shaped optical fibers having different numbers of fibers are connected to each other to form a split-type tape-shaped optical fiber. Good.

An optical fiber core in a tape-shaped optical fiber core will be described with reference to FIG. In this embodiment, a single mode glass fiber is used as the glass fiber 6, and a soft primary coating layer and a hard secondary coating layer made of a urethane acrylate-based ultraviolet curable resin are used.
A seed layer is applied as a protective coating 7 on the glass fiber 6. The number of the protective coating layers 7 is not limited to two, but may be one, three or more. On the outer periphery of the protective coating layer 7, a colored layer 8 formed by applying and curing an ultraviolet curable ink is applied.

As shown in FIG. 1A, optical fibers 2a, 2b, 2c and 2 are colored with different colored layers.
d or 3a, 3b, 3c, and 3d are arranged in parallel on the same plane, respectively, and integrated with a collective coating resin 4 or 5 made of an ultraviolet curable resin to form the tape-shaped optical fiber cores 2 and 3 is manufactured. The tape-shaped optical fiber cores 2 and 3 are arranged in parallel on the same plane, and connected by a connecting resin 6 made of an ultraviolet curable resin, whereby the split-type tape-shaped optical fiber core 1 is manufactured.

In addition to the basic structure described above, according to the present invention, the optical fiber cores 2d, 2a, 2b, 2c, 2c, 2c, 2c, 2c, 2c, 2c, 2c, 2c, For the colored layer 3a, an ultraviolet curable resin having a carbon-carbon residual double bond concentration of 15% or more was used.

A description will be given of the quality of division of the split-type optical fiber ribbon. When dividing into two tape-shaped optical fiber core units with a dividing jig, it is sufficient if the optical fiber can be easily divided into two units as shown in FIG. 2, and the optical fiber core is exposed as shown in FIG. Or, as shown in FIG. 4, if the optical fiber core wire 2d spilled, it was determined to be defective.

Here, the colored optical fiber cores 2d, 3a on the adjacent side of the tape-shaped optical fiber core units 2, 3 connected by the connecting resin having the structure shown in FIG.
For the colored layer (1), split-type tape-shaped optical fibers with various concentrations of the carbon-carbon residual double bond of the ultraviolet-curable resin were manufactured, and the correlation with the splitting property was investigated. FIG. 8 shows the evaluation results.

The curability of the colored layer was determined by the following method.
First, the surface of the protective coating layer was measured for its IR spectrum by the ATR method (KRS-5 was used as the ATR crystal). At this time, an absorption peak around 810 cm ^{-1 which} decreases as the curing progresses, and an 830 cm absorption at which the curing does not change as the curing progresses
The ratio of the absorption peak near ^-1 is represented by the area ratio,
(Surface Ratio). At this time, uncured resin SR (uncured) and target sample S
From R (sample), Cure (%) = ((SR (uncured) -SR
(Sample)) / SR (uncured)) × 10
The ratio of consumption of carbon-carbon double bonds was defined by the equation of 0, and the concentration of carbon-carbon residual double bonds was defined by A (%) = (1-Cure (%)).

Here, in order to change the carbon-carbon residual double bond concentration of the colored layer, the linear velocity and the UV lamp power (the power of the ultraviolet lamp for curing the ultraviolet curable resin ink) in the coating step of the colored layer. Changed).

In the first embodiment, the optical fibers 2d and 3a
The split type tape-shaped optical fiber cord was manufactured such that the carbon-carbon residual double bond concentration of the colored layer was 15% or more. In Comparative Examples 1 to 3, the concentration of carbon-carbon residual double bonds in the coloring layer of the optical fiber core wire 3a was set to 15% or more. -A split type optical fiber ribbon was manufactured so that the carbon residual double bond concentration was 15% or less. In Comparative Examples 4 and 5, split-type tape-shaped optical fiber cores were manufactured such that the concentration of the carbon-carbon residual double bond in the colored layer of each of the optical fiber cores 2d and 3a was 15% or less. .

According to the evaluation results shown in FIG.
The splitting property as shown in FIG. 2 was always shown. In Comparative Examples 1 to 3, there were cases in which the partitionability as shown in FIGS. 5 and 6 was exhibited. In addition, in Comparative Examples 4 and 5, in addition to FIGS.

As a result, if the carbon-carbon residual double bond on the surface of the colored layer is 15% or less in the above equation, the colored optical fiber core is stripped or spilled, resulting in poor division. Sometimes. This is probably because the adhesion between the colored layer and the collective coating resin is weak. Then, by increasing the carbon-carbon residual double bond concentration of the colored layer, that is, by lowering the degree of curing, U
Because the V light adheres firmly to the colored layer, the optical fiber cored from the collectively coated resin is exposed at the time of division,
Or, it will not spill.

In the above-described embodiment, a case has been described in which the optical fiber cores in the tape-shaped optical fiber cores are all optical fiber cores coated with a colored layer. The present invention is not limited to this, and a colored layer may be applied to a part of the optical fiber cable including one end. Of course, a colored layer may be applied only to the optical fiber core at one end.

[0022]

As is apparent from the above description, when the split-type tape-shaped optical fiber is divided into tape-shaped optical fibers for each unit, not only the tape shape but also the adhesion of the coupling resin and the collectively coated resin are obtained. Although various factors such as force are involved, according to the present invention, by defining the degree of curing of the colored layer of the optical fiber core wire provided with the colored layer, the physical properties of the coating resin and the condition of the tape shape are adjusted. There is an effect that it is possible to provide a split-type tape-shaped optical fiber core having excellent splitability without having to worry as much as before.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a view for explaining a basic structure of an example of an embodiment of a split-type tape-shaped optical fiber core according to the present invention, and FIG. 1 (A) is a sectional view of the split-type tape-shaped optical fiber core. FIG. 1B is a cross-sectional view of the optical fiber.

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of a split-type tape-shaped optical fiber core wire which has been split with good splittability.

FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view of a split-type tape-shaped optical fiber core divided into defective divisions.

FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view of a split-type tape-shaped optical fiber core divided into defective divisions.

FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view illustrating an example of a defective division in a comparative example.

FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view illustrating an example of a defective division in a comparative example.

FIG. 7 is a cross-sectional view illustrating an example of a defective division in a comparative example.

FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram of an evaluation result.

[Explanation of symbols]

Reference numeral 1 denotes a split-type optical fiber ribbon, 2, 3 denotes a tape-type optical fiber core unit, 2a, 2b, 2c, 2d, 3
a, 3b, 3c, 3d: optical fiber core wire, 4, 5: collective coating resin, 6: coupling resin, 6: glass fiber, 7 ...
Protective coating layer, 8 ... colored layer.

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A tape-shaped optical fiber core unit in which a plurality of optical fiber cores provided with a protective coating layer made of an ultraviolet curable resin are arranged and integrated with a collective coating resin made of an ultraviolet curable resin. A plurality of units are arranged in parallel, and in a divided tape-shaped optical fiber core wire connected by a connection resin made of an ultraviolet-curable resin, the optical fibers arranged at at least one end of the tape-shaped optical fiber core unit The core wire is provided with a colored layer made of an ultraviolet-curable resin on the outer periphery of the protective coating layer, and the colored layer on the side adjacent to another tape-shaped optical fiber core unit when connected with a connecting resin. The colored layer of the applied optical fiber has a carbon-carbon residual double bond concentration of 1%.
A split-type tape-shaped optical fiber core wire having a content of 5% or more. 2. A method according to claim 1, wherein a protective coating layer made of an ultraviolet-curable resin is applied, and a plurality of optical fiber cores provided with a colored layer made of an ultraviolet-curable resin on the outer periphery of the protective coating layer are arranged. A plurality of units of the tape-shaped optical fiber core unit integrated by a batch coating resin made of an ultraviolet-curable resin are further arranged in parallel, and a split type tape-shaped optical fiber core unit connected by a connecting resin made of an ultraviolet-curable resin is used. Of the optical fiber cores arranged at both ends of the tape-type optical fiber core unit, coloring of the optical fiber core on the side adjacent to another tape-type optical fiber core unit when connected by a connecting resin. The split type tape-shaped optical fiber core, wherein the layer has a carbon-carbon residual double bond concentration of 15% or more.