Flexible Ribbon Bundles and Interlocking Layout for Dense Optical Cables
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional optical cables face challenges in achieving high fiber density while maintaining mechanical and optical performance due to sensitivity to bending, buckling, and compressive stresses, and altering duct sizes is costly or impractical.
Innovation Solution
The optical cable design incorporates deformable ribbon bundles with flexible ribbons and a minimalistic strength member configuration, allowing for high fiber packing density and reduced diameter through interlocking patterns and peripheral strength rods, ensuring minimal attenuation and mechanical integrity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If conventional optical cables are used to increase fiber density, then data transmission capacity is improved, but the cables become more prone to damage during installation and service
Solution Approach 1:
The cable is segmented into modular ribbon bundles containing multiple optical fibers, with each bundle independently protected by a deformable jacket. This segmentation allows high fiber density while distributing mechanical stresses across multiple independent units, preventing damage propagation throughout the entire cable.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs deformable ribbon bundle jackets and a flexible outer jacket that can accommodate bending and compression without damaging the optical fibers. These flexible protective layers maintain the cable's ability to bend while protecting the fragile fibers from mechanical stress during installation and service.
2Ease of operation
If the cable diameter is reduced to fit through ducts, then installation feasibility is improved, but the fiber density and data transmission capacity are compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses nested ribbon bundles arranged in concentric circles within the cable cross-section. Multiple ribbon bundles are packed efficiently inside the outer jacket, maximizing the use of available space. This nested arrangement achieves high fiber density in a compact cable diameter that can pass through standard ducts.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transitions from traditional linear cable arrangements to a two-dimensional concentric circular arrangement of ribbon bundles. This dimensional change allows significantly more fibers to be packed into the same cable cross-sectional area, increasing fiber density without increasing the cable diameter.
3Strength
If strength members are added to protect optical fibers from compressive stress, then mechanical protection is improved, but the cable diameter increases and fiber density decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces traditional rigid strength members with flexible deformable jackets that provide mechanical protection through flexibility rather than rigidity. The ribbon bundle jackets and outer jacket can deform under compression to protect the fibers while maintaining a compact cable structure that preserves high fiber density.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the mechanical properties of the protective layers from rigid to deformable, allowing the cable to accommodate compressive stresses through controlled deformation rather than relying on rigid strength members. This parameter change enables high fiber density while providing adequate mechanical protection.
Data Source
AI summary
An exemplary optical cable includes a first type of ribbon bundles, a second type of ribbon bundles, a third type of ribbon bundles, a plurality of strength rods, and an outer jacket. Each of the first, the second, and third type of ribbon bundles includes a first, a second, a third flexible ribbon with corresponding optical fibers disposed within a ribbon bundle jacket. The first type of ribbon bundles is arranged in an interlocking pattern in a central region of the optical cable. The second type of ribbon bundles and the third type of ribbon bundles are disposed around the first type of ribbon bundles in a peripheral region of the optical cable. The outer jacket is disposed around the second and the third type of ribbon bundles, and the plurality of strength rods being at least partially embedded in the outer jacket, where the cumulative cross-sectional area of all of the strength rods in the cable divided by the cumulative cross-sectional area of all glass parts of the optical fibers in the cable is a first value less than 0.22, and where, at a temperature between −40° C. and 0° C. and at a wavelength of 1550 nm, the attenuation increase of the optical fibers in the cable relative to 25° C. is below 0.15 dB/km.