• Journal of computational fluids engineering
• /
• v.16 no.4
• /
• pp.110-115
• /
• 2011

A modern optical fiber manufacturing process requires the sufficient cooling of glass fibers freshly drawn from the heated and softened silica preform in the furnace, since the inadequately cooled glass fibers are known to cause improper polymer resin coating on the fiber surface and to adversely affect the product quality of optical fibers. In order to greatly enhance the fiber cooling effectiveness at increasingly high fiber drawing speed, it is necessary to use a dedicated glass fiber cooling unit with helium gas injection between glass fiber drawing and coating processes. The present numerical study features a series of three-dimensional flow and heat transfer computations on the cooling gas and the fast moving glass fiber to analyze the cooling performance of glass fiber cooling unit, in which the helium is supplied through the discretely located rectangular injection holes. The air entrainment into the cooling unit at the fiber inlet is also included in the computational model and it is found to be critical in determining the helium purity in the cooling gas and the cooling effectiveness on glass fiber. The effects of fiber drawing speed and helium injection rate on the helium purity decrease by air entrainment and the glass fiber cooling are also investigated and discussed.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.92-98
• /
• 2010

In a modern high speed drawing process of optical fibers, it is necessary to use helium as a cooling gas in a glass fiber cooling unit in order to sufficiently cool down the fast moving glass fiber freshly drawn from the heated silica preform in the furnace. Since the air is entrained unavoidably when the glass fiber passes through the cooling unit, the helium is needed to be injected constantly into the cooling unit. The present numerical study investigates and analyzes the air entrainment using an axisymmetric geometry of glass fiber cooling unit. The effects of helium injection rate and direction on the air entrainment rate are discussed in terms of helium purity of cooling gas inside the cooling unit. For a given rate of helium injection, it is found that there exists a certain drawing speed that results in sudden increase in the air entrainment rate, which leads to the decreasing helium purity and therefore the cooling performance of the glass fiber cooling unit. Also, the helium injection in aiding direction is found to be more advantageous than the injection in opposing direction.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2011.05a
• /
• pp.92-95
• /
• 2011

In manufacturing optical fibers, the process starts with the glass fiber drawing from the heated and softened silica preform in the furnace, and the freshly drawn glass fiber is still at high temperature when it leaves the glass fiber drawing furnace. It is necessary to cool down the glass fiber to the ambient temperature before it then enters the fiber coating applicator, since the hot glass fiber is known to cause several technical difficulties in achieving high quality fiber coating. As the fiber drawing speed keeps increasing, a current manufacturing of optical fibers requires a dedicated cooling unit with helium gas injection. A series of three-dimensional flow and heat transfer computations are carried out to investigate the effectiveness of fiber cooling in the fiber cooling unit. The glass fiber cooling unit is simplified into the long cylindrical enclosure at which the hot glass fiber passes through at high speed, and the helium is being supplied through several injection slots of rectangular shape along the cooling unit. This study presents and discusses the effects of helium injection rates on the glass fiber cooling rates.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
• /
• v.13 no.2
• /
• pp.124-130
• /
• 2014

In a mass manufacturing system of optical fibers, the sufficient cooling of glass fibers freshly drawn from a draw furnace is essential, asinadequately cooled glass fibers can lead to poor resin coating on the fiber surface and possibly fiber breakage during the process. In order to improve fiber cooling at a high drawing speed, it is common to use a helium injection into a glass fiber cooling unit in spite of the high cost of the helium supply. The present numerical analysis carried out three-dimensional thermo-fluid computations of the cooling gas flow and heat transfer on moving glass fiber to determine the cooling performance of glass fiber cooling depending on the method of helium injection. The results showed that afront injection of helium is most effective compared to a uniform or rear injection for reducing air entrainment into the unit and thus cooling the glass fibers at a high fiber drawing speed. However, above a certain amount of injected helium, there was no more increase of the cooling effect regardless of the helium injection method.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Advanced Composite Structures
• /
• v.6 no.2
• /
• pp.91-96
• /
• 2015

GRP pipe (Glass-fiber Reinforced Plastic Pipe) lines making use of FRP (Fiber Reinforced Plastic) are generally thinner, lighter, and stronger than the existing concrete or steel pipe lines, and it is excellent in stiffness/strength per unit weight. In this study, we present the result of field test for buried GRP pipes with large diameter(2,400mm). The vertical and horizontal ring deflections are measured for 387 days. The short-term deflection measured by the field test is compared with the result predicted by the Iowa formula. In addition, the long-term ring deflection is predicted by using the procedure suggested in ASTM D 5365(ANNEX) in the range of 40 to 60 years of service life of the pipe based on the experimental results. From the study, it was found that the long-term vertical and horizontal ring deflection up to 60 years is less than the 5% ring deflection limitation.