WO2013189264A1

WO2013189264A1 - Method and device for automatically controlling temperature of optical fiber coatings in wiredrawing process

Info

Publication number: WO2013189264A1
Application number: PCT/CN2013/077327
Authority: WO
Inventors: 向德成; 张华明; 何勤国; 钱新伟; 王瑞春; 陈刚
Original assignee: 长飞光纤光缆有限公司
Priority date: 2012-06-18
Filing date: 2013-06-17
Publication date: 2013-12-27
Also published as: CN102718414A; AP2015008192A0; CN102718414B

Abstract

A method and a device for automatically controlling the temperature of optical fiber coatings in a wiredrawing process. The device comprises an optical fiber coating device (4), wherein a coating cavity of the optical fiber coating device (4) is communicated with a charging bucket by a charging pipeline. The device is characterized in that the charging pipeline is externally provided with a controllable heater (6) which is used for heating the coatings in the charging pipeline, the charging pipeline is also provided with a processing control unit which is used for comparing an acquired wiredrawing speed sensing signal and charging pipeline temperature sensing signal with a preset parameter numerical value, so as to control the heating process of the controllable heater (6), so that the automatic controlling and adjusting process of the temperate of the coatings in the optical fiber coating device (4) can be realized. According to the device and the method, the temperature of the coatings in an optical fiber wiredrawing process can be automatically changed along with the wiredrawing speed, so that the temperature or the viscosity of the coatings can be well matched with the wiredrawing speed, and therefore, the quality of a coating layer on the surface of the optical fiber can be guaranteed, and the machining yield of the optical fiber can be improved.

Description

Method and device for automatically controlling temperature of optical fiber coating in wire drawing process

Technical field

The invention relates to a method and a device for online temperature control of a fiber coating for a wet-on-wet coating process, and belongs to the technical field of optical fiber processing.

Background technique

The fiber coating layer is one of the two most important materials that make up the fiber. Its main functions include mechanical protection of the bare fiber, maintaining fiber strength, resisting environmental erosion, and maintaining and improving fiber bending performance. Therefore, the quality of fiber coating will directly affect the quality and performance of the fiber. For the conventional communication fiber, the surface of the glass fiber is coated with two coating layers. The thickness and proportion distribution of the two coating layers will affect the performance of the fiber to a large extent, such as peeling force, microbending performance, environment. Test performance, etc. Therefore, the thickness and ratio of the two coating layers need to be controlled within a reasonable range.

The wet-on-wet fiber coating process in the fiber coating process has the following characteristics: (1) Since the two coating chambers are directly adjacent, the same water (or oil) bath cavity is usually used to apply the coating cup. Heating, but not separately heating the two coating chambers. According to the corresponding research, for the wet-on-wet coating process, the viscosity difference between the two coatings in the drawing process should be controlled within a certain reasonable range; (2) in the drawing process, because the two layers of coating are separately coated and coated The application method is different, so the diameter of the mold hole coated by the second layer coating is generally large. Such a design tends to cause a large coating diameter at the low speed stage at the beginning of drawing, and the optical fiber is scrapped.

With the development of optical fiber manufacturing technology, the drawing speed of optical fibers is getting faster and faster, and is currently more than 1,500 m/min. Under this circumstance, it is more and more difficult to meet the demand for coating of high-speed drawing by the conventional fixed-temperature heating method, and the coating quality of the optical fiber is difficult to be ensured. The wet-on-wet coating process is considered to be suitable for high-speed wire drawing, but the process and equipment need to be improved to achieve good fiber coating quality.

technical problem

The technical problem to be solved by the present invention is to provide a method and a device for automatically controlling the temperature of the fiber coating material in the drawing process in view of the deficiencies of the prior art mentioned above, so as to realize the automatic change of the coating temperature with the drawing speed during the fiber drawing process, thereby achieving the coating temperature (or The viscosity is well matched to the drawing speed to ensure the quality of the coating on the surface of the fiber.

Technical solution

The technical proposal of the automatic control method for the temperature of the optical fiber coating of the invention comprises: an optical fiber applicator, the coating chamber of the optical fiber applicator is connected to the material tank through the feeding pipeline, and is characterized in that a controllable heater is arranged outside the feeding pipeline Heating the paint in the feed pipe and setting a process control unit. The process control unit compares the sampled wire speed sensing signal with the feed pipe temperature sensing signal with a preset parameter value to control the heater. The heating process is controlled to achieve automatic control and adjustment of the coating temperature in the fiber applicator.

According to the above scheme, the processing control unit is a PLC unit, and the PLC unit is provided with a program corresponding to the drawing speed and the feeding pipeline temperature, and the heating of the controllable heater is automatically adjusted according to the change of the drawing speed by the PLC program control.

According to the above scheme, the controllable heater automatically adjusts the temperature of the feed pipe to a range of 25 to 100 ° C; the feed pipe is a metal pipe.

According to the above scheme, the heating mode of the controllable heater is an electric heating mode, a liquid medium heating mode or a gas medium heating mode.

According to the above scheme, the fiber applicator is provided with one or more paint chambers, each of which is respectively connected to the feed pipe, and at least one feed pipe is provided with a controllable heater, at least one The paint in the material pipe is heated.

According to the above scheme, the relationship between the feed pipe temperature setting and the drawing speed in the PLC program is:

y = a[(x-300)/100]2 + b(x-300)/100 + c

Where: y is the feed pipe temperature setting of the PLC; x is the drawing speed; a is a constant, ranging from 0.1 to 0.6; b is a constant, ranging from 0.1 to 4; c is a constant, ranging from 20 to 40.

The technical proposal of the automatic control device for the temperature of the optical fiber coating of the invention comprises: an optical fiber applicator, the coating chamber of the optical fiber applicator is connected to the material tank through the feeding pipeline, and is characterized in that a controllable heater is arranged outside the feeding pipeline At the same time, the PLC unit is set, and the input end of the PLC unit is connected with the wire drawing speed sensor and the feed pipe temperature sensor respectively, and the output end of the PLC unit is connected with the temperature control circuit of the controllable heater.

According to the above scheme, the wire drawing speed sensor is disposed on the traction wheel at the drawing output end; and the feed pipe temperature sensor is disposed on the feeding pipe near the fiber applicator.

According to the above scheme, the controllable heater is an electric heater, and the electric heater is composed of a heating wire wrapped around the feed pipe.

According to the above scheme, the controllable heater is a liquid or gas medium heater, and the liquid or gas medium heater is composed of an annular heating tank covering the feed pipe and a circulating heater connected thereto, and the annular heating tank The circulating heater is filled with a liquid or gaseous medium.

Beneficial effect

The beneficial effects of the invention are as follows: 1. The temperature of the controllable heater is automatically adjusted by the PLC according to the drawing speed, so that the coating temperature is automatically adjusted according to the drawing speed, and the coating viscosity and the drawing speed are well matched, such automatic adjusting coating In the fiber drawing process, not only the viscosity of the coating in each coating chamber can be arbitrarily adjusted, so that the thickness ratio and diameter of each coating layer of the optical fiber can be conveniently adjusted, and the two-layer coating cannot be freely adjusted during the wet-to-wet coating process. The problem of layer thickness and ratio, and can reduce and avoid fiber scrap caused by coating overflow, coating diameter exceeding, coating unevenness and corrugation of coating interface. Thereby, the quality of the surface coating layer of the optical fiber is ensured and improved, and the yield of the optical fiber processing is improved. 2, the structure is simple, easy to implement and promote, improve the automation level of fiber processing equipment.

DRAWINGS

Figure 1 is a schematic view showing the structure of an embodiment of the apparatus of the present invention.

2 is a schematic structural view of another embodiment of the apparatus of the present invention.

Embodiments of the invention

detailed description

Embodiments of the present invention are further described below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Embodiment 1 is shown in FIG. 1 and is an electric heating method including an optical fiber applicator 4, and the optical fiber applicator coating chamber is connected to the material tank through a feeding pipe, and the optical fiber applicator is provided with upper and lower sides. Two coating chambers, wherein the upper coating chamber is in communication with the upper feeding conduit 5, the upper feeding conduit may or may not have a controllable heater, and the lower coating chamber is in communication with the lower feeding conduit 2, outside the lower feeding conduit The surface is wound with one or more layers of electric heating wires to form a controllable heater 6. The temperature of the lower feeding pipe is measured by the temperature sensor 3, and the temperature of the heating wire is adjusted by the temperature setting value of the PLC unit connected thereto. The temperature set value is set according to Equation 1, and the drawing speed sensing signal of the PLC unit is collected by the traction wheel. A valve 1 is connected in series in the feed pipe, and the discharge port of the feed pipe is connected with the fiber applicator 4. During the drawing process, the paint in the feed pipe is heated by the heating wire 6 wound on the surface thereof, due to the heating pipe immediately adjacent In the fiber applicator 4, the heated paint enters the fiber applicator with minimal temperature loss, so the viscosity of the coating material in the coating cup can be adjusted by the pipe temperature.

Before the start of drawing, the coating valve 1 is in the closed state. Since the speed is zero, the resistance wire does not heat the feeding pipe; when the drawing starts, the valve automatically opens, the paint starts to flow, and the heating wire is gradually heated according to the setting of the PLC. Because the outer diameter of the fiber is generally large at low speed, the pipe temperature cannot be set too high at low speed, otherwise too much outer diameter of the fiber will be discarded; when the drawing speed is increased, in order to match the viscosity of the two layers of coating material, Increasing the outer diameter of the fiber, the temperature of the coating pipe will increase according to the set value of the PLC; when the speed is reduced, the heating wire will reduce the heating power or not, so that the pipe temperature is naturally cooled to the target value; when the drawing ends, the valve Automatically shut off, the heating wire stops heating, and the paint inside the pipe is naturally cooled to normal temperature. In general, the upper feed conduit 5 of the first layer of paint does not require heating. The initial speed of pipe heating is generally 300~400m/min.

Embodiments of the invention

Embodiment 2 is a liquid or gas medium heating mode as shown in FIG. 2, which differs from the previous embodiment in that the controllable heater 6 is a liquid or gas medium heater, the liquid or gaseous medium. The heater is composed of an annular heating tank covering the lower feed pipe 2 and a circulating heater 7 connected thereto. The annular heating tank and the circulating heater are filled with a liquid or gaseous medium, and the circulating heater is heated by a liquid or gaseous medium. The heating of the feed pipe heats the coating until the temperature of the coating is close to the temperature of the liquid or gaseous medium; the temperature sensor of the embodiment is installed in the liquid or gas medium chamber of the circulating heater, and the temperature of the liquid or gaseous medium is used as the feed. The temperature of the pipe is sensed to the PLC unit. The other structure is the same as the previous embodiment.

Claims

A method for automatically controlling the temperature of a fiber coating material in a drawing process, comprising a fiber coating device, wherein the coating chamber of the fiber coating device is connected to the material tank through a feeding pipe, characterized in that a controllable heater is arranged outside the feeding pipe Heating the paint in the feed pipe and setting a process control unit. The process control unit compares the sampled wire speed sensing signal with the feed pipe temperature sensing signal with a preset parameter value to control the heater. The heating process is controlled to achieve automatic control and adjustment of the coating temperature in the fiber applicator.

2. The method for automatically controlling temperature of a fiber coating material in a drawing process according to claim 1, wherein the processing control unit is a PLC unit, and the PLC unit is provided with a program corresponding to a drawing speed and a feeding pipe temperature, which is controlled by a PLC program. The heating of the controllable heater is automatically adjusted as the drawing speed changes.

3. The method for automatically controlling the temperature of a fiber coating material according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the controllable heater automatically adjusts the temperature of the feed pipe to a range of 25-100 °C.

4. The method for automatically controlling the temperature of a fiber coating material according to claim 3, wherein the heating method of the controllable heater is an electric heating method, a liquid medium heating method or a gas medium heating method.

The method for automatically controlling the temperature of a fiber coating material in a drawing process according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the fiber applicator is provided with one or more coating chambers, and each coating chamber is respectively connected to the feeding pipe, at least A controllable heater is placed on a feed line to warm the coating in at least one of the feed lines.

6. The method for automatically controlling temperature of a fiber coating material in a drawing process according to claim 2, wherein the relationship between the temperature setting of the feed pipe and the drawing speed in the PLC program is:

y = a[(x-300)/100]2 + b(x-300)/100 + c,

7. A fiber optic coating temperature automatic control device for a drawing process, comprising an optical fiber applicator, the coating chamber of the optical fiber applicator being connected to the material tank through a feeding pipe, characterized in that a controllable heater is arranged outside the feeding pipe At the same time, the PLC unit is set, and the input end of the PLC unit is connected with the wire drawing speed sensor and the feed pipe temperature sensor respectively, and the output end of the PLC unit is connected with the temperature control circuit of the controllable heater.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the wire drawing speed sensor is disposed on a traction wheel at the output end of the wire drawing; and the feeding pipe temperature sensor is disposed adjacent to the fiber coating. On the feed line of the device.

9. The automatic control device for temperature control of a fiber coating process according to claim 7 or 8, wherein said controllable heater is an electric heater, and said electric heater is composed of a heating wire wrapped around a feed pipe. Composition.

10. The automatic control device for temperature control of a fiber coating process according to claim 7 or 8, wherein the controllable heater is a liquid or gas medium heater, and the liquid or gas medium heater is coated. The annular heating tank of the feed pipe and the circulating heater connected thereto are connected, and the annular heating tank and the circulation heater are filled with a liquid or gaseous medium.