Metal working – Method of mechanical manufacture – With testing or indicating
Reexamination Certificate
1998-12-31
2001-12-11
Hughes, S. Thomas (Department: 3726)
Metal working
Method of mechanical manufacture
With testing or indicating
C029S460000, C029S714000, C029S779000, C029S820000, C427S118000, C427S163200, C264S001290, C385S106000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06327767
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method for continuously manufacturing fiber-optic cable.
The present invention also relates to an apparatus for continuously manufacturing fiber-optic cable.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
A viable method for continuously manufacturing fiber-optic cable is not known from conventional patent literature. FR patent No. 2,564,987 describes a system in which optical fibers are reeled off from cylindrical fiber reels in the axial direction of the reels, whereby the goal of the invention is to achieve a continuous fiber-optic cable manufacturing process by way of splicing the tail of exhausting reels to the start end of a new reel during the process. This method does not make use of an fiber buffer, but instead, the fiber reserve is located resting in containers which have no capability of active take-up or reel-off of fiber during the splicing operation. This method has a number of serious disadvantages. For instance, the fiber reels received from the fiber supplier must be unwound and re-coiled into the containers, which is a time-consuming step. A more serious complication is related to the fiber reel-off direction. Namely, the reeling-off of the fiber in the axial direction of the reel can cause sticking of the fiber between the underlaying fiber turns that may cut the fiber. Furthermore, this solution has no reliable means of detecting the end of an exhausting fiber reel, and any possible fiber damage during the fiber reel-off halts the entire cable manufacturing process.
The traditional discontinuous cable manufacturing process in turn is hampered by losses through discarded material in the process start-up and shut-down phases, and the long start-up time of the process. Moreover, when a fiber lot is ordered from a supplier trimmed to a specified length, in practice the delivered lot always contains a certain number of shorter fibers trimmed exactly to the specified length, while the other fibers may be somewhat overlength, whereby typically about 7% of the fiber material is lost due to the trimming of the overlength fibers in this conventional process. The shut-down and start-up losses of this process are in the order of a few percent, which causes the overall material loss of the conventional process to be about 10%.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to overcome the disadvantages of the above-described techniques and offer an entirely novel type of method and apparatus for continuously manufacturing fiber-optic cable.
The goal of the invention is achieved by providing the cable manufacturing process with a fiber buffer serving to facilitate run-time splicing of the fiber.
More specifically, the method according to the present invention includes accumulating fibers in an active buffer during the manufacture process, joining the end of an exhausting fiber with the end of a new fiber, and reeling off the fiber to the manufacturing process from the active buffer during the splicing operation.
Furthermore, the apparatus according to the present invention includes a splicing device suitable for forming a splice between the optical fibers, and an active buffer suitable for continuously feeding the optical fibers into the manufacturing process arranged after the splicing device and during the splicing operation.
The present invention offers significant benefits.
The present continuous process can offer at least a 20% increase in the cable manufacturing capacity. By making optically functional splices of the fiber ends, the material savings can be as high as ten percent. Even if only temporary factory splices are used to join the fiber ends, the fiber raw material savings may be several percent as the start-up and shut-down losses of the process are eliminated.
REFERENCES:
patent: 2427507 (1947-09-01), Powell, 3D et al.
patent: 4129468 (1978-12-01), Knab
patent: 4541970 (1985-09-01), Caverly, Jr. et al.
patent: 2443412 (1980-08-01), None
patent: A1-2564987 (1985-11-01), None
Karvonen Leevi
Puhakka Timo
Suvanto Markku T.
Cozart Jermie E.
Hughes S. Thomas
NK Cables OY
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