Prediction of Ribbon Friction by Matrix Resin Upjacketing of Single Fibers

摘要

As the trend of fiber to the home (FTTH) persists, it is beneficial for ribbon matrix and buffer coatings to possess an intrinsic low coefficient of friction without the lubricating action of external greases. In order to test the friction properties of new matrix or buffer coatings without the time and materials necessary to produce a high fiber count ribbon, a test has been devised in which a single fiber is upjacketed with the candidate resin. The single buffered fiber is pulled along a control ribbon without any lubricating additives. This test method is based on published methodology that is used in the industry to generate CoF data for ribbon to ribbon contact. Since the single buffered fiber has been coated on typical fiber optic coloring and ribboning equipment with the proper thickness of the resin, the authors observed good rank order correlation between the measured sliding friction of the single fiber and a typical twelve-fiber ribbon of standard configuration. This method has proved a significant advantage in saving time and materials, and provides a much better coefficient of friction performance prediction than flat film analyses. Examples are presented in this paper that demonstrate this correlation between buffered single fiber to ribbon and ribbon to ribbon coefficient of friction results.