Anisotropic Cable Sealing Gel Structure to Prevent Leakage
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing cable sealing technologies face challenges in achieving a proper seal without experiencing the 'eye effect' or 'tent effect', where portions of the cable are not sealed, leading to potential leakage, and softer gels used to address these issues can result in loss of pressure due to creepage.
Innovation Solution
The development of anisotropic cable sealing structures with embedded reinforcing materials that provide internal spring load characteristics, allowing for deformation in specific directions to prevent leakage while maintaining containment, using 3D printing to combine gel and reinforcing materials for complex shapes and enhanced sealing performance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a softer gel is used to allow good flow around the cable to fill potential leakage points, then sealing effectiveness is improved, but the gel may creep out leading to loss of pressure
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines gel material with fibrous reinforcing material to create a composite sealing structure. The gel provides the soft, flowable characteristics needed to fill leakage points and conform to cable surfaces, while the fibrous reinforcement provides structural integrity and prevents creepage. This composite approach resolves the contradiction by integrating the complementary properties of both materials into a single functional sealing element.
Solution Approach 2:
The sealing structure exhibits local quality differentiation through its composite construction: the gel portion provides local softness and flowability at the cable contact interface to ensure sealing effectiveness, while the fibrous reinforcement provides local stiffness and dimensional stability in regions where pressure containment is critical. This spatial variation in material properties allows the single structure to simultaneously achieve both sealing effectiveness and pressure containment.
2Reliability
If gel blocks are made softer to address the eye effect, then triple point sealing is improved, but the gel blocks lose containment and stored energy resulting in the tent effect
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a composite structure where gel material is combined with fibrous reinforcement. The gel component enables effective triple point sealing through its softness and ability to flow into void areas, while the fibrous material provides the strength and structural support needed to maintain containment and store spring energy, preventing the tent effect that occurs with soft gel alone.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent fundamentally changes the material parameter from homogeneous soft gel to a composite material system. This parameter change allows the sealing structure to simultaneously exhibit soft characteristics (for triple point sealing) and strong characteristics (for containment and energy storage) that are mutually exclusive in single-material systems. The composite structure enables both soft gel behavior at the sealing interface and strong structural behavior in the containment regions.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The anisotropic sealing structures effectively prevent leakage by controlling deformation in specific directions, maintaining pressure and preventing creepage, thus providing a reliable seal for various cable types without the need for external spring loads or precise enclosure matching.
Implementation Method 1
Gel seals are often pressurized under spring load to encourage the gel to deform or flow into void areas to provide effective sealing
Implementation Method 2
The reinforcing structure can have spring like characteristics to apply a spring load to the gel
Data Source
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AI summary
Aspects and techniques of the present disclosure relate to a cable sealing structure comprising a cable sealing body including a gel and methods of making anisotropic behavior in cable sealing structures made with a dry silicone gel. In one aspect, various three-dimensional printing techniques are used to make a cable sealing structure that includes a gel. The cable sealing body has a construction that elastically deforms to apply an elastic spring load to the gel. The cable sealing body has a construction with anisotropic deformation characteristics that allows the cable sealing body to be less deformable in one direction than in others. The cable sealing structure can be utilized to seal fiber optic cables more uniformly while limiting the potential of leakage.