JPH04181203A - Thin coated optical fiber tape - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain a high-density optical fiber cable by respectively arranging plural optical fibers whose cross section is flat and whose minor axis is <=200mum in one line in a major axis direction and forming a coating material so that tape thickness may be equal to the minor axis of the optical fiber. CONSTITUTION:A thin coated optical fiber tape 10 is obtained by provided the bundle of optical fibers which is obtained by plurally juxtaposing optical fibers 11 provided with a resin coating film 14 on the surface of a bare optical fiber 13 in the major axis direction so that the cross section of the optical fiber 11 may be an ellipse having <=250mum major axis and <=200mum minor axis. The resin coating film 12 is formed on the bundle of the fibers so that the tape thickness may be equal to the minor axis of the optical fiber 11. Thus, the thickness of the coated optical fiber tape can be set at <=200mum. Therefore, the high-density optical fiber cable is obtained by laminating many thin coated optical fibers, further plurally collecting the laminated bodies, and coating them so that the cable may be constituted.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] This invention relates to an optical fiber tape coated with a coating material and formed into a tape shape. The present invention relates to a thin optical fiber ribbon whose diameter is approximately equal to the outer diameter of the tip fiber.

"Prior art" Figure 6 shows a conventional optical fiber ribbon.
The optical fiber ribbon 1 is composed of a plurality of optical fibers 2 and a resin coating 3 covering them.

The optical fiber 2 is an optical fiber having an outer diameter of 250 μm, which is made by coating the outer periphery of a non-glumot optical fiber with a diameter of 125 μ degrees with an ultraviolet curing resin or the like.

The optical fiber tape core 1 is formed by arranging a plurality of the optical fibers 2 in parallel and collectively coating them with an ultraviolet curing resin or the like to form a tape shape.

Incidentally, in recent years, with regard to optical cables using optical fibers, ultra-high-density, multi-core optical cables that accommodate thousands of optical fibers have been studied to enable the transmission of extremely large numbers of information. In order to store an extremely large number of optical fibers in a cable at high density, it is necessary to laminate a large number of thin tape cores, and then assemble multiple laminates and cover them to form a cable. Methods are being researched.

"Problems to be Solved by the Invention" However, in the conventional optical fiber ribbon, when the optical fiber ribbon 1 is manufactured using the optical fiber strand 2 with an outer diameter of 25μ, for example, the optical fiber tape The thickness of the core wire 1 was approximately 280 to 320 μm due to its structure.

The present invention was made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to provide a thin optical fiber ribbon having a thickness of 200 μm or less.

"Means for Solving the Problem" The problem is to solve the problem by arranging a plurality of optical fibers in parallel and covering them with a coating material to form a tape. flat,
This can be solved by having a short axis of 200 μl or less, aligning a plurality of the optical fibers with their long axis directions aligned, and forming the coating material so that the thickness of the tape is equal to the short axis of the optical fiber. Ru.

"Function" In the thin optical fiber ribbon of the present invention, a plurality of optical fibers are arranged in parallel and coated with a coating material to form a tape shape, in which the optical fiber has the following characteristics: The cross section is flat, the short axis is 200μ or less, the plurality of optical fibers are aligned in the long axis direction, and the coating material is made equal to the tape thickness or the short axis of the optical fiber. Since the thickness of the optical fiber ribbon is 200 μM or less, it is possible to reduce the thickness of the optical fiber ribbon to 200 μM or less.

"Embodiment" FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an embodiment of the thin optical fiber ribbon of the present invention. In the figure, the symbol 10 indicates a thin optical fiber tape (hereinafter abbreviated as tape core). be.

The tape cable core IO is composed of a plurality of optical fibers 11 and a resin coating 12 covering them.

The optical fiber 11 has a resin coating 14 made of ultraviolet curing resin or the like coated on the surface of a bare optical fiber 13 so that its cross section is elliptical.

As the bare optical fiber 13, optical communication fibers such as quartz-based songle mode fibers and multimode fibers can be used. The diameter of this bare optical fiber is usually 125μ.

Further, as the resin material of the resin coating 14, an ultraviolet curing resin or the like is suitably used, and the ultraviolet curing resin is preferably a urethane acrylate type, an epoxy acrylate type, a butadiene acrylate type, a nolicone acrylate type resin, or the like. In addition, the Young's modulus of the resin is 1 to 9/
It is also possible to use a soft resin material of mm' or less, or a two-layer structure in which a hard resin with a Young's modulus of 20 kg/ii" or more is formed on a soft resin layer. Also, this resin coating 14
If the short axis (minimum diameter) indicated by reference numeral 14A in FIG. Since there is a risk that the wire may break when the wire is applied, it is preferable that the thickness of the short diameter 14A of the resin coating 14 is approximately 10 to 35 μm. Further, it is preferable that the major axis (maximum diameter) of the resin coating 14 indicated by the reference numeral 14B in FIG. 1 be 250 μl.

Further, the ribbon cable wire 0 has a structure in which a plurality of the optical fibers 11 are arranged with their long diameters aligned in a line. Further, as the resin coating 12 for collectively covering the plurality of optical fiber strands 11, ultraviolet curing resins such as urethane acrylate, epoxy acrylate, butadiene acrylate, and noricone acrylate are preferably used.

As described above, in the thin optical fiber ribbon 10 of this embodiment, the cross section of the optical fiber 11 has a major axis of 250 mm.
A fiber bundle is provided in which a plurality of optical fibers 11 each having a resin coating 14 provided on the surface of a bare optical fiber 13 are arranged in parallel in the major axis direction so as to have an elliptical shape with a short diameter of 200μ or less, Since the resin coating 12 was formed on this fiber bundle so that the tape thickness was equal to the short diameter of the first fiber strand 11, the thickness of the optical fiber tape core could be 200 μm or less.

The optical fiber strands 11 constituting the thin optical fiber ribbon 10 have a length of 250 μl, and the plurality of optical fibers 11 are arranged in a line in the longer axis direction. Since the structure is such that the pitch between each strand is 250 μm, it is the same as a conventional optical fiber ribbon, and the connectors and flexible cables used when connecting this thin optical fiber ribbon 10 are Conventional peripheral equipment such as landing gear can be used as is or with some modifications.

In this example, an optical fiber having an elliptical cross section as shown in FIG. 25
The shape is not limited as long as the diameter is 0 μm and the minor axis is 200 μM or less. For example, a wire with an oval cross section as shown in FIG. 11a is good.

(Manufacturing Example) The thin optical fiber ribbon 10 described in the above example was manufactured by the following operations.

First, using the optical fiber manufacturing equipment shown in Fig. 2,
An optical fiber wire 11 was produced.

This optical fiber bare wire manufacturing equipment consists of an optical fiber bare wire 13
It is composed of a spinning furnace 15 for producing the fiber, a die casting machine 16, a curing device 17 for curing the coated ultraviolet curing resin, and a winding bohin 18 for winding the produced optical fiber wire. L).

The upper die spot 16 is a device having a nipple 19, an ultraviolet curable resin supply port 20, and a die opening 21, and is a device for coating the outer peripheral surface of the bare optical fiber 13 with an ultraviolet curable resin. . As shown in FIG. 3, the diameter of the die opening 21 is such that the short axis indicated by 16A is 200 μl, and the long diameter is 250 μl, indicated by 16B.
An elliptical diameter was used.

First, a bare silica optical fiber 13 having a diameter of 125 μm is produced by spinning in the spinning furnace 15, and then the bare fiber 13 is introduced into the die spot 16 from the nipple 19, and the ultraviolet curing resin is A urethane acrylate-based ultraviolet curable resin having a Young's modulus of 5 to 9/mm2 when cured is supplied from the supply port 20 into the die spot 16, and the resin coating 14 (uncured) is coated on the surface of the optical fiber/bare wire 13. Thus, an optical fiber wire 11A was obtained.

Next, the optical fiber 11A was introduced into a curing device equipped with a lamp for irradiating ultraviolet rays, and the resin coating 14 was cured to produce the optical fiber 11.

Next, eight of these optical fiber strands 11 were bundled and lined up in parallel with each other in the long axis direction to form a fiber bundle, and this fiber bundle was introduced into the die 22.

As shown in FIG. 4, the die 22 has a die spot 24 formed through a die hole 23 having a short axis of 200 μm, denoted by numeral 23A, and a major axis of 2 mm, denoted by numeral 23B.
and a resin supply path 25 provided in communication with the die hole 23.

A fiber bundle in which eight optical fiber wires 11 are arranged in parallel is introduced into the die 22, and the Young's modulus when cured is 70 in the die spot 24 through the resin supply path 25.
kti/mm" urethane acrylate-based ultraviolet curable resin, and then tape coated with resin.
The resin was introduced into a curing device, and the resin was cured by irradiating ultraviolet light with an ultraviolet irradiation lamp provided inside the curing device.

With the above operations, the tape thickness is 0.2 as shown in Figure 1.
A thin optical fiber tape core 10 having a diameter of 0 mm and a width of 2 mm was obtained. The obtained ribbon core wire 10 has sufficient binding force between each strand, and the twist pitch of the tape core wire 10 is 5.
The coating was not damaged even when a slight twist of mm was applied.

"Effects of the Invention" As described above, the thin optical fiber tape core of the present invention is an optical fiber tape core in which a plurality of optical fibers are arranged in parallel and coated with a coating material to form a tape shape. In the wire, the optical fibers have a flat cross section and a short axis of 200 μl or less, the plurality of optical fibers are aligned in the long axis direction, and the coating material is coated with a tape having a thickness of the same length. Since it is formed so that it is equal to the short diameter of the optical fiber, it is possible to make the thickness of the optical fiber ribbon less than 200 μm. Therefore, a high-density optical fiber cable can be obtained by laminating a large number of such thin tape cores, further assembling a plurality of these laminates, and covering them to construct a cable.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a sectional view showing an embodiment of the thin optical fiber ribbon of the present invention, and FIGS. 2 to 5 are diagrams showing an example of a manufacturing apparatus for the thin optical fiber ribbon of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of the spinning device, FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the die opening of the spinning device shown in FIG. 2, FIG. 4 is a perspective view of the die, and FIG. FIG. 6 is a sectional view showing a modified example of the thin optical fiber ribbon of the present invention, and FIG. 6 is a sectional view showing a conventional optical fiber ribbon. IO... Thin optical fiber tape core wire, 11 - Optical fiber bare wire, 12 - Resin coating, 14 - Resin coating. 14A: short axis, 14B: long axis.

Claims (1)

[Claims] In optical fiber tape core wire, which is formed by arranging a plurality of optical fibers in parallel and coating them with a coating material to form a tape,
The optical fiber has a flat cross section and a short axis of 200 mm.
μm or less, a plurality of the optical fibers are arranged in a line with their long axis directions, and the coating material is formed so that the tape thickness is equal to the short axis of the optical fibers. Fiber tape core.