Optical fiber drawing pulling mechanism

Abstract

The application discloses an optical fiber drawing traction mechanism, comprising a tension wheel, a main traction wheel and a guide wheel; the tension wheel is arranged at the upstream of the main traction wheel and adopts a floating structure; the main traction wheel is a driving wheel driven by a servo driving motor to rotate and provides constant linear speed for optical fiber conveying; the guide wheel is a driven wheel without power and keeps a gap larger than the outer diameter of the optical fiber between the outer edge of the main traction wheel, and does not apply radial clamping and extrusion force to the optical fiber. The application discloses an optical fiber drawing traction mechanism, comprising a tension wheel, a main traction wheel and a guide wheel; the tension wheel is arranged at the upstream of the main traction wheel and adopts a floating structure; the main traction wheel is a driving wheel driven by a servo driving motor to rotate and provides constant linear speed for optical fiber conveying; the guide wheel is a driven wheel without power and keeps a gap larger than the outer diameter of the optical fiber between the outer edge of the main traction wheel, and does not apply radial clamping and extrusion force to the optical fiber. The application discloses an optical fiber drawing traction mechanism, comprising a tension wheel, a main traction wheel and a guide wheel; the tension wheel is arranged at the upstream of the main traction wheel and adopts a floating structure; the main traction wheel is a driving wheel driven by

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention belongs to the field of optical fiber manufacturing equipment technology, and specifically relates to an optical fiber drawing and traction mechanism. Background Technology

[0002] Fiber optic drawing is the core forming process in fiber optic manufacturing. The process flow is as follows: the fiber preform is melted and softened in a high-temperature drawing furnace, and then pulled down uniformly under its own weight to form a continuous bare fiber. The bare fiber undergoes forced cooling, primary and secondary coating, ultraviolet curing, and laser diameter measurement before being formed into a qualified finished fiber. Among these processes, the traction mechanism, located between the coating and curing unit and the end-of-line take-up mechanism, is the core power reference and precision transport unit of the entire drawing production line. The traction mechanism plays a crucial role in stabilizing the lead-out speed, isolating front-end drawing fluctuations, and maintaining constant fiber reference tension. Its mechanical structure stability, clamping accuracy, anti-vibration capability, and uniform speed transport performance directly determine the subsequent take-up and winding quality and the performance of the finished fiber. It is a key pre-construction core structure for high-speed, high-quality fiber mass production.

[0003] In existing technologies, optical fiber drawing production lines generally adopt a dual-wheel clamping traction structure, mainly composed of an active traction wheel, a pressure wheel, and a simple frame. The pressure wheel clamps the optical fiber, and constant-speed feeding is achieved by the rotation of the traction wheel. However, existing technologies have the following drawbacks: 1) Traditional traction structures suffer from poor clamping uniformity and uneven fiber stress. Existing traction pressure rollers mostly employ fixed elastic clamping structures, resulting in a single clamping force that cannot be adaptively adjusted. The parallelism between the pressure roller and the traction roller relies on manual assembly and calibration, which can easily lead to coaxiality deviations and roller swaying over long-term operation. During the clamping and transport process, the fiber may experience unilateral compression and uneven stress, which not only easily damages the fiber's surface coating, causing hidden appearance defects, but also causes micro-deviations during fiber transport, leading to subsequent cable winding and tension fluctuations, significantly reducing the finished fiber yield. 2) Traditional traction mechanisms suffer from insufficient rigidity and severe vibration and jitter during high-speed operation. Traditional traction frames are mostly simple sheet metal or ordinary cast steel structures, with weak overall structural rigidity and poor anti-resonance capabilities. Under high-speed fiber drawing conditions, the high-speed rotation of the traction wheel easily generates mechanical vibration and radial runout. This vibration cannot be effectively suppressed and will be directly transmitted to the optical fiber, causing high-frequency micro-jitter. On the one hand, this causes instantaneous fluctuations in the fiber drawing tension, affecting the geometric dimensional accuracy of the optical fiber. On the other hand, high-frequency jitter will cause dense micro-bending of the optical fiber during the winding process, significantly increasing the transmission loss of the optical fiber and failing to meet the production standards for ultra-low loss optical fibers. 3) Traditional dual-wheel clamping and belt drive structures are prone to slippage, have poor metering accuracy, and struggle to guarantee synchronization. Traditional traction relies on a pressure wheel clamping and belt drive for fiber optic transport and metering. However, the small clamping contact area and small wrap angle between the fiber and the traction wheel make it highly susceptible to slippage between the fiber and the wheel, as well as belt slippage, during high-speed drawing or small tension fluctuations. Slippage directly leads to a discrepancy between the actual rotational speed of the traction wheel and the actual speed of the fiber, severely compromising the accuracy of the production line's speed benchmark. This not only results in larger errors in fiber metering and substandard finished product coil length accuracy but also causes a lack of synchronization between traction transport and metering detection, continuously impacting take-up and winding accuracy and the degree of mass production standardization. Furthermore, long-term belt wear and loosening further exacerbate slippage and synchronization deviations, leading to rapid equipment accuracy degradation and high maintenance costs. 4) Traditional traction wheel sets have poor adaptability and rapid decline in operational accuracy. Existing traction wheels and pressure wheels are mostly of fixed specifications, with limited wear resistance of the wheel coating. After long-term high-speed clamping and transmission of optical fibers, wear, dents, and slippage easily occur, causing unstable optical fiber transmission line speed. Furthermore, fixed-structure traction wheel sets cannot adapt to the clamping requirements of special optical fibers with different diameters and hardnesses, resulting in poor versatility. Moreover, there is no automatic compensation mechanism after wear, leading to continuous deterioration of transmission accuracy after long-term operation, high equipment maintenance frequency, and poor production continuity. Summary of the Invention

[0004] To address the problems in the prior art, the present invention aims to provide an optical fiber drawing and traction mechanism.

[0005] To achieve the above objectives and technical effects, the technical solution adopted by this invention is as follows: An optical fiber drawing and traction mechanism includes a tension wheel, a main traction wheel, and a guide wheel; The tension wheel is located upstream of the main traction wheel and adopts a floating structure to buffer the tension impact caused by front-end wire drawing and melting and furnace temperature fluctuations, suppress drastic tension fluctuations, and avoid fiber breakage. The main traction wheel is an active drive wheel, connected to a servo drive motor, and is driven to rotate by the servo drive motor to provide a constant linear speed for optical fiber transmission. The guide wheel is a non-powered driven wheel, installed on the side of the main traction wheel, and maintains a gap between it and the outer edge of the main traction wheel that is larger than the outer diameter of the optical fiber, so as not to apply radial clamping or squeezing force to the optical fiber. The optical fiber is sequentially wound around the tension wheel, the main traction wheel and the guide wheel. The guide wheel is used to limit the direction of the optical fiber and force the optical fiber to adhere to the outer surface of the main traction wheel with a large wrap angle, so as to achieve synchronous transmission of static friction without clamping or slippage.

[0006] Furthermore, the tension wheel is positioned to the upper left of the main traction wheel and downstream of the drawing tower. The tension wheel has a floating stroke of 20-60mm in the vertical direction, and its outer diameter is 120-180mm.

[0007] Furthermore, the outer circumference of the tension wheel is provided with an annular limiting groove to prevent the optical fiber from coming out laterally.

[0008] Furthermore, the outer diameter of the main traction wheel is 250-350mm.

[0009] Furthermore, the outer circumference of the main traction wheel is provided with a smooth annular winding groove, and the wheel cover is covered with a high-friction, wear-resistant non-metallic coating.

[0010] Furthermore, the outer diameter of the guide wheel is 100-160mm.

[0011] Furthermore, the outer circumference of the guide wheel is provided with an optical fiber limiting ring groove to prevent the optical fiber from detaching laterally.

[0012] Furthermore, the position of the mounting bracket of the guide wheel is adjustable, which is used to adjust the radial distance between the guide wheel and the main traction wheel, thereby changing the wrap angle of the optical fiber on the main traction wheel.

[0013] Furthermore, the wrap angle of the optical fiber on the main traction wheel is 160-210°.

[0014] Compared with the prior art, the beneficial effects of the present invention are as follows: 1) Completely eliminates slippage: Traditional dual-wheel clamping structures rely on a single-point clamping point of the pressure roller, resulting in a very small effective contact angle between the optical fiber and the traction wheel. Under high-speed drawing and tension fluctuation conditions, the optical fiber is prone to slippage relative to the wheel body. At the same time, belt drives are prone to elastic slippage, which disrupts the stability of the transmission. This invention abandons the traditional pressure roller clamping and belt drive, and relies on a rear guide wheel to forcibly extend the contact arc length between the optical fiber and the main traction wheel, significantly increasing the effective angle of wrap (reaching 160°-210°). It can achieve complete contact between the optical fiber and the main traction wheel without the need for elastic pressure roller clamping, eliminating the problems of optical fiber slippage and belt slippage at the source, and ensuring the continuity and stability of optical fiber transmission under high-speed drawing conditions. 2) Strict synchronization between traction and meter counting significantly reduces meter counting errors and greatly improves meter counting accuracy: Traditional structures suffer from slippage, belt slack and wear, and pressure roller clamping misalignment, causing a mismatch between the rotational linear speed of the traction wheel and the actual travel speed of the optical fiber. This results in a disconnect between meter counting and actual cable routing conditions, leading to large discrepancies in reel length measurement and poor product consistency. This invention relies on guide wheels to define the cable routing path, ensuring that the optical fiber travel speed is completely synchronized with the main traction wheel speed, eliminating relative displacement. This achieves strict synchronization between traction transport and meter counting, significantly reducing disc length measurement errors and substantially improving the accuracy of finished optical fiber reel length and the standardization of mass production. 3) Eliminating uneven clamping stress and protecting the fiber coating: Traditional structures suffer from uneven clamping force, wheel coaxiality deviation, and unilateral extrusion, which easily damage the outer coating of the fiber, resulting in hidden quality defects and causing fiber routing misalignment and cable arrangement disorder. This invention relies on the limiting cooperation between the guide wheel and the main traction wheel to achieve extrusion-free bonding and conveying, with no rigid clamping stress throughout the process. This completely avoids problems such as coating layer pressure loss and unilateral force deviation of the fiber, effectively improving the appearance quality and transmission performance stability of the finished fiber, and meeting the precision production requirements of high-end ultra-low loss and bending-resistant special optical fibers; 4) Simplified transmission structure, reducing equipment accuracy degradation and maintenance costs: Traditional structures include multiple vulnerable transmission components such as belts, elastic pressure rollers, and spring clamping assemblies. Long-term high-speed operation easily leads to belt loosening, wear, aging, and pressure roller misalignment and wear, resulting in rapid equipment accuracy degradation and frequent maintenance and replacement of parts, leading to high production and maintenance costs. This invention uses only a minimalist rigid guiding structure with a main traction wheel and a rear guide wheel. With fewer transmission links and stronger structural rigidity, it achieves purely rigid limit conveying, eliminating vulnerable elastic transmission components. This significantly improves the long-term accuracy and stability of the equipment, effectively reducing maintenance frequency and production costs, and making it suitable for long-term continuous large-scale mass production. 5) Stable fiber routing posture and enhanced anti-disturbance capability: Traditional structures are prone to slight swaying of the pressure rollers and belt vibration during high-speed operation, causing high-frequency offset and vibration of the optical fiber, which in turn couples with disturbances in the preceding and following processes, leading to tension fluctuations. This invention uses a rear-mounted guide wheel to shape the optical fiber routing trajectory, ensuring a fixed routing path without floating offset. This effectively suppresses micro-vibrations during optical fiber transportation, isolates minor mechanical disturbances in the preceding and following processes, and ensures that the optical fiber routing posture remains stable and regular. This provides a precise and reliable pre-transportation reference for downstream cable take-up and tension stability. Attached Figure Description

[0015] Figure 1 This is a schematic diagram of the structure of the present invention. Detailed Implementation

[0016] The present invention will now be described in detail so that its advantages and features can be more easily understood by those skilled in the art, thereby providing a clearer and more explicit definition of the scope of protection of the present invention.

[0017] The following provides a brief overview of one or more aspects to offer a basic understanding of them. This overview is not an exhaustive summary of all conceived aspects, nor is it intended to identify key or decisive elements of all aspects, nor to define the scope of any or all aspects. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts of one or more aspects in a simplified form to prepare for the more detailed descriptions that follow.

[0018] like Figure 1As shown, this invention discloses an optical fiber drawing and traction mechanism to solve the technical problems of traditional traction mechanisms, such as damage to optical fibers due to clamping, easy slippage at high speeds, inaccurate meter reading, weak structural rigidity, and high maintenance costs. The optical fiber drawing and traction mechanism disclosed in this invention includes a tension wheel 1, a main traction wheel 2, and a guide wheel 3; Among them, the tension wheel 1 is located upstream of the main traction wheel 2 and adopts a floating structure to buffer the tension impact caused by front-end wire drawing and melting and furnace temperature fluctuations, suppress violent tension fluctuations, and avoid fiber breakage. The main traction wheel 2 is an active drive wheel, connected to a servo drive motor, and is driven to rotate by the servo drive motor to provide a constant linear speed for the transmission of optical fiber 4. The guide wheel 3 is a non-powered driven wheel, installed on the side of the main traction wheel 2, and maintains a gap between it and the outer edge of the main traction wheel 2 that is larger than the outer diameter of the optical fiber 4, so that no radial clamping or squeezing force is applied to the optical fiber 4. The optical fiber 4 passes through the tension wheel 1, the main traction wheel 2 and the guide wheel 3 in sequence. The guide wheel 3 is used to limit the direction of the optical fiber 4, forcing the optical fiber 4 to adhere to the outer surface of the main traction wheel 2 with a large wrap angle. It is driven to move by the static friction force generated by the large wrap angle, so as to achieve synchronous transmission of static friction force without clamping or slippage.

[0019] In some embodiments, the tension wheel 1 is positioned to the upper left of the main traction wheel 2 and downstream of the drawing tower 5. The tension wheel 1 has a vertical floating stroke of 20-60 mm, which forms a mechanical energy storage buffer zone to absorb instantaneous changes in fiber tension caused by melting fluctuations and furnace temperature disturbances from the front end of the drawing tower. This isolates front-end process disturbances, preventing them from being directly transmitted to the main traction wheel and thus preventing fiber breakage due to sudden tension changes. The outer diameter of the tension wheel 1 is 120-180 mm, and an annular limiting groove with a depth slightly greater than the outer diameter of the fiber is provided on the outer circumference of the wheel body to prevent the fiber 4 from laterally detaching. The tension wheel does not provide traction power; it only serves to buffer tension fluctuations and prevent fiber breakage at the front end.

[0020] In some embodiments, the main traction wheel 2 is positioned to the lower right of the tension wheel 1 and diagonally below the guide wheel 3. The outer diameter of the main traction wheel 2 is 250-350mm. The outer circumference of the main traction wheel 2 is provided with a smooth annular winding groove, and the wheel cover is coated with a high-friction, wear-resistant non-metallic coating to improve the static friction coefficient. The servo drive motor speed is connected in a closed loop to the production line metering acquisition module, and the speed signal of the main traction wheel 2 is directly used as the raw signal for metering calculation.

[0021] In some specific implementations, the high-friction and wear-resistant non-metallic coating is obtained by casting polyurethane vacuum casting and constant-temperature vulcanization curing, which can be achieved using existing brushing or spraying techniques.

[0022] In some embodiments, spatially, the guide wheel 3 is close to the outer edge of the main traction wheel 2, with the minimum gap between the outer edges of the two wheels greater than the outer diameter of the optical fiber, resulting in no hard compression contact and no clamping force between them. The outer diameter of the guide wheel 3 is 100-160mm, and the outer circumference of the guide wheel 3 is provided with an optical fiber limiting groove to prevent the optical fiber 4 from laterally detaching. The mounting support of the guide wheel 3 is positionally adjustable to adjust the radial distance between the guide wheel 3 and the main traction wheel 2, thereby changing the wrap angle of the optical fiber 4 on the main traction wheel 2. After the optical fiber 4 enters the main traction wheel 2, under the path limiting action of the rear guide wheel 3, the optical fiber 4 is attached to the outer circumference of the main traction wheel 2 with a large wrap angle, and the static friction force generated by the large wrap angle drives the optical fiber 4 to move at a constant speed. The guide wheel 3 only serves to constrain the tangential direction of the optical fiber and maintain the large wrap angle as a driven guide, without applying radial clamping or compressive force to the optical fiber 4. After the optical fiber 4 leaves the guide wheel 3, it is conveyed to the rear take-up machine 7.

[0023] In some embodiments, the wrap angle of the optical fiber 4 on the main traction wheel 2 is 160-210°. The optical fiber 4 is cut into the lower side of the tension wheel 1 from upstream at an angle, wraps around the upper side at an arc of about 90°, and then leads out from the right side. It cuts into the main traction wheel 2 at an angle, rotates close to the outer circle of the main traction wheel 2, wraps around the main traction wheel 2 at a large angle, cuts into the lower side of the guide wheel 3 at a small angle, and then leads out tangentially into the take-up machine 7.

[0024] The working process of the optical fiber drawing and traction mechanism disclosed in this invention is as follows: After the fiber 4 is coated and cured from the drawing tower 5, it travels downwards through the transition guide roller 6 and then upwards at an angle. It cuts into the tension roller 1 from the bottom, wraps around the tension roller 1 at an angle of about 90°, and then exits from the right side of the tension roller 1. The tension roller 1 floats up and down by its own weight or an external counterweight to buffer the tension impact caused by the front end drawing and melting and furnace temperature fluctuations, suppressing violent tension fluctuations and avoiding fiber breakage. Then, after the fiber 4 leaves the tension roller 2, it cuts diagonally downwards into the left side of the main traction roller 2. The fiber 4 rotates downwards, to the right, and upwards along the outer circle of the main traction roller 2, and then comes into contact with the fiber limiting ring groove on the bottom side of the rear guide roller 3. The fiber 4 cuts into the bottom side of the guide roller 3, wraps around the guide roller 3 at a small angle, and then exits from the right side of the guide roller 3. After leaving the guide roller 3, the fiber 4 is transported to the rear take-up machine 7. Under the path limiting effect of the rear guide wheel 3, the optical fiber 4 is constrained and attached to the outer edge of the main traction wheel 2. The optical fiber 4 is attached to the outer circle of the main traction wheel 2 with a large wrap angle. The actual effective wrap angle of the optical fiber 4 on the main traction wheel 2 can reach 160°-210°. Compared with the traditional dual-wheel pressing and traction structure, the wrap angle of the optical fiber in the traditional single-point clamping mode is generally only 30°-60°. This invention relies on the guide wheel 3 to change the output tangential direction of the optical fiber 4, without the need for radial pressing force from the pressure wheel. The synchronous delivery of the optical fiber 4 is achieved by the static friction force of the contact surface brought about by the large wrap angle. The large wrap angle significantly increases the effective contact arc length and contact area between the optical fiber 4 and the main traction wheel 2, greatly improving the maximum static friction force. Under the conditions of high-speed drawing and small fluctuations in optical fiber tension, the phenomenon of optical fiber slippage relative to the wheel surface of the main traction wheel is completely avoided. The actual travel speed of optical fiber 4 is completely consistent with the rotational linear speed of the main traction wheel 2. The rotational speed signal collected by the main traction wheel 2 can be directly used as the metering basis, achieving complete synchronization between traction transport and metering acquisition, eliminating metering errors caused by slippage. The guide wheel 3 only serves to constrain the tangential direction of optical fiber 4 and maintain a large wrap angle, without applying radial clamping or squeezing force to optical fiber 4. The entire mechanism does not have the elastic pressure wheel, spring clamping assembly, or drive belt of traditional structures. It relies on the rigid wheel group position configuration to achieve precise transport of optical fiber 4 without squeezing or slippage. The structure is simple, rigid, and has low maintenance costs, making it particularly suitable for the production of ultra-low loss, high-precision optical fibers.

[0025] Any parts or structures not specifically described in this invention can be made using existing technologies or products, and will not be elaborated upon here.

[0026] The above description is merely an embodiment of the present invention and does not limit the patent scope of the present invention. Any equivalent structural or procedural transformations made based on the content of the present invention specification, or direct or indirect applications in other related technical fields, are similarly included within the patent protection scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. An optical fiber drawing and traction mechanism, characterized in that, Includes tension wheel, main traction wheel, and guide wheel; The tension wheel is located upstream of the main traction wheel and adopts a floating structure to buffer the tension impact caused by front-end wire drawing and melting and furnace temperature fluctuations, suppress drastic tension fluctuations, and avoid fiber breakage. The main traction wheel is an active drive wheel, connected to a servo drive motor, and is driven to rotate by the servo drive motor to provide a constant linear speed for optical fiber transmission. The guide wheel is a non-powered driven wheel, installed on the side of the main traction wheel, and maintains a gap between it and the outer edge of the main traction wheel that is larger than the outer diameter of the optical fiber, so as not to apply radial clamping or squeezing force to the optical fiber. The optical fiber is sequentially wound around the tension wheel, the main traction wheel and the guide wheel. The guide wheel is used to limit the direction of the optical fiber and force the optical fiber to adhere to the outer surface of the main traction wheel with a large wrap angle, so as to achieve synchronous static friction transport without clamping or slippage.

2. The optical fiber drawing and traction mechanism according to claim 1, characterized in that, The tension wheel is located to the upper left of the main traction wheel and downstream of the drawing tower. The tension wheel has a floating stroke of 20-60mm in the vertical direction and an outer diameter of 120-180mm.

3. The optical fiber drawing and traction mechanism according to claim 1, characterized in that, The tension wheel has an annular limiting groove on its outer circumference to prevent the optical fiber from coming out laterally.

4. The optical fiber drawing and traction mechanism according to claim 1, characterized in that, The outer diameter of the main traction wheel is 250-350mm.

5. The optical fiber drawing and traction mechanism according to claim 1, characterized in that, The outer circumference of the main traction wheel is provided with a smooth annular winding groove, and the wheel cover is covered with a high-friction and wear-resistant non-metallic coating.

6. The optical fiber drawing and traction mechanism according to claim 1, characterized in that, The outer diameter of the guide wheel is 100-160mm.

7. The optical fiber drawing and traction mechanism according to claim 1, characterized in that, The outer circumference of the guide wheel is provided with an optical fiber limiting ring groove to prevent the optical fiber from coming out laterally.

8. The optical fiber drawing and traction mechanism according to claim 1, characterized in that, The position of the mounting bracket of the guide wheel is adjustable, which is used to adjust the radial distance between the guide wheel and the main traction wheel, thereby changing the wrap angle of the optical fiber on the main traction wheel.

9. The optical fiber drawing and traction mechanism according to claim 1, characterized in that, The wrap angle of the optical fiber on the main traction wheel is 160-210°.

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