Study and control of welding quality of stainless tube and its influences on OPGW cable stranding process

摘要

The OPGW is a substitute for a conventional ground-/shield-wire containing optical fibres for control and/or telecommunication purposes. Usually the fibres are embedded loosely in protective buffer tubes. To fulfill mechanical and electrical requirements; an armoring of one or more layers with aluminum, aluminum alloy, and aluminum clad steel, galvanized steel or a mixture of them is helically stranded. The stainless tube contains fibres is the core part of the OPGW cable. This paper mainly studied the welding quality of the tube. Several factors had been tested. The laser focus distance, protective gas, waterblocking gel, quality of stripe and the draw ratio are adjusted upon different sizes of tube. Base on the above production process, we mainly test the overlength of fibre, the content of gel, and the welding quality of tube. Different welding defects are provided and studied. We found that the quality of stripe, such as width, the forming gap, and the laser focus are the mainly two factors. Finally the influences of tube on OPGW have been simulated during the installation.