Strain of an Optical Fiber in Undersea Cable Manufacture during Its

Insulation Jacket Extrusion Process

Chung-Shin Ma
TyCom (US) Ltd., Eatontown, NJ 07724

ABSTRACT

Fiber used in an undersea cable encounters different stresses from fiber manufacture to final cable manufacture. Usually
fiber experiences the highest stress at its required proof test during fiber manufacture. For the processes of an undersea
cable, fiber usually experiences much less stress. However, one of the cabling processes was identified to have higher
stress than expected, which is the insulation jacket extrusion of a deep-water cable. This paper models the fiber strain in
this process and proves its consistency with observed data. The cause of higher fiber strain is believed to be from thermal
expansion of the filling compound gel in the loose tube portion of the cable. This change of gel is modeled to
demonstrate that the fibers are affected locally and are stretched simultaneously with gel movement. This phenomenon is
temporary and the fiber strain changes with the gel temperature during the manufacturing process.

Keywords: fiber strain, proof test, shear, filling compound

1. INTRODUCTION

Fiber is relatively strong in terms of tensile strength, but is vulnerable to abnormally high external forces. Usually a fiber
is designed with a dual coat for protection and microbending reduction. In addition, a proof test is conducted during the
fiber manufacturing process to ensure fiber strength.

For an undersea optical fiber cable system application, the requirement of fiber strength is more stringent. Depending on
the cable system design, the range of fiber strength is from 100 to 200 kpsi. For a loose tube undersea cable with fiber
terminated in a joint box, a typical requirement of fiber strength is 200 kpsi. Fiber is always proof tested by the
manufactures at a level slightly above 200 kpsi. Before shipping or at the late stage of fiber processing, fiber is usually
requested to be proof tested again at slightly lower levels to ensure fiber strength quality. After the fiber is received at a
cable factory, minimal handling for measurement purpose and preparation for the loose tube process is needed without a
significant amount of stress on the fiber. During the loose tube process, fiber is passed through sheaves, nozzles, dies,
and eventually enters into a loose tube. Based on the dimensions of these devices, the fiber experiences less strain for a
very short time period and there is little impact to the fiber. Once fibers are placed into the loose tube, they are protected
during normal cabling operations.

The rest of the process for undersea cable manufacturing includes strength wire stranding, copper sheath forming and
insulation jacketing. It is believed that none of these processes are apparently stressing the fiber. To understand the stress
level, there is no easy way except dynamic stress/strain measurement. Abraded fiber with known strength range is useful
for this work and the recent technology of grating fiber [1] is also a powerful tool. In this study, an abraded fiber trial
showed that the stress/strain in the insulation jacket process is more significant than expected. An abraded fiber of
strength up to, but below, 100 kpsi was used to find the stress level of this process and the highest break strength of the
abraded fiber was found around 70 to 80 kpsi tension. This suggests that the insulation jacketing process stretches the
fiber even though the cable itself is under very low tension. It appears that the key factors inducing the fiber stretch in
this jacketing process are the temperature change of the cable and gel movement. This paper models this phenomenon
and explains the cause of fiber stretch for reliability concerns.

Optical Fiber and Fiber Component Mechanical Reliability and Testing II, M. John Matthewson,
Charles R. Kurkjian, Editors, Proceedings of SPIE Vol. 4639 (2002) © 2002 SPIE · 0277-786X/02/$15.00 93

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 2. CABLE STRUCTURE AND MANUFACTURING PROCESS

2.1 Cable Structure

There are several types of undersea cables. Here we focus on the study of SL17 LightWeight (LW) cable. Figure 1
shows the structure of this cable. The cable core is a PBT loose tube filled with filling compound gel and fibers. The
core is surrounded by the wound strand wires, which serve as strength member of the cable. The strand wires are
confined by copper sheath and both serve as a power conductor (PC) to transmit power to repeaters. An insulation layer
of polyethylene (PE) is extruded on the outside of the copper sheath. This LW is normally a deep-water cable and other
cables such as armor and protection cables are manufactured with additional layers on the LW cable.

Optical Fibers

Loose Tube
OD = 2.47 mm
8 Ultra-High Strength
Steel Wires
Water-Blocking Material

16 Ultra-High Strength
Steel Wires

Copper Sheath
OD = 8.89 mm

Medium Density
Polyethylene
Insulation
OD = 17.0 mm

Figure 1: SL17 LW cable structure.

2.2 Manufacturing Processes and Fiber Stresses

The manufacturing processes of LW cable have three steps. First, loose tube is made through a normal process but with a
tight control of excess fiber length (EFL). The second step includes wire stranding, copper sheath welding and swaging
processes. Fibers always experience low stress in these two processes.

The last step in the manufacture of LW cable is the PE insulation extrusion process. Polyethylene is extruded on copper
PC. The heat of molten PE transfers quickly to the core to heat up the cable. The tension on the cable is low in this
process which does not affect fiber strain, but thermal expansion of the loose tube gel appears to contribute a great deal.
Abraded fiber trial verified that fiber experienced the highest strain in this insulation extrusion of the whole cabling
processes.

2.3 Temperature Profile of PE Extrusion Process

PE extrusion is the process that introduces a significant amount of heat into the cable core. The temperature of the cable
core was measured by using thermocouple through the complete PE extrusion process. The measured temperature profile
(relative) of cable core (gel and fiber) is shown in Figure 2. In addition, an approximate curve fitting is conducted and
shown in the same figure. This temperature approximation profile is used for fiber strain calculation based on the model
of next section.

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 12

measured curve fit

10

8
relative temperature

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
relative distance from extruder

Figure 2: Temperature profile of relative scale of SL17 cable core of PE jacket extrusion process.

3. MODEL

3.1 Gel Deformation

Fiber in a loose tube is surrounded by a filling compound-gel. The linear thermal expansion coefficient of gel is more
than 100 times that of glass-fiber. Therefore the influence of temperature change on the fiber is negligible. Although the
temperature change itself does not directly affect the fiber, the movement of gel due to thermal expansion and
compression in the loose tube changes the fiber stress status through shear coupling.

From Figure 2, the core (gel) temperature reaches its peak at about a distance 2 (relative value) from the extruder. This
suggests that the gel expansion and gel pressure reach their maximal value about 2 after the extruder. From cable end
condition before and after the PE extrusion process, no gel was observed pushing out of the loose tube, it is believed that
the thermal expansion of gel is balanced by the shear force from both sides of the peak temperature location. Therefore,
we consider just one side of the tube from its peak temperature in the model to find the fiber stress in this process.

It is also noted that after a distance 10 (relative value) from the extruder, the temperature of gel does not change.
Therefore we can consider that the gel will expand from 2 to 10 after the extruder due to gel temperature increases.
Beyond roughly 10, the gel is compressed without thermal expansion or increase of temperature. In this region, the
compressed gel will be balanced by the shear force from the tube and fiber and eventually to a distance without gel
compression. Figure 3 briefly shows the pressure distribution of gel along the cable from the peak temperature location,
which is the origin of x-axis. It also shows the gel strain along the cable starting from the unheated gel location. This plot
illustrates the instantaneous gel pressure and strain distribution around the peak gel temperature in a cable.

In Figure 3, L is the length from peak temperature of gel to the point of constant gel temperature. This corresponds to the
distance from about 2 to 10 in Figure 2, and is the heated gel region. Here δ is the final expanded length of the heated gel
region of length L, and a is the gel compressed region but without elevated temperature. Beyond L+ δ+a, gel pressure
and temperature return to normal as in the loose tube of a PC before the PE extrusion process. Also in Figure 3 pmax is the

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 peak pressure at the peak temperature and p0 is the pressure at the end of the heated zone. Only partial gel strain ε in the
region of a (from L+δ to L+δ +a ) used to build the model is shown in Figure 3.

p, ε
pmax
p0

ε0

x
L+δ L +δ+a

Figure 3: The gel pressure and strain (partially displayed) model.

In the region of length a (from L+δ to L+δ +a ), gel is compressed from side of the heated gel and held by the rest of the
cable. At any location within this region, the pressure from the heated gel and the shear force from the tube and fiber
balance the gel. Figure 4 illustrates the force balance of a small element of gel in this region.
τc

p(x) p(x+∆x)

∆x

Figure 4: Balance of gel element in non-heated region.

From Figure 4, the relationship between pressure and shear can be derived from the force balance and written as:

A∆p( x) = A[ p( x + ∆x) − p( x)] = τπD∆x (1)

where A is the inner area of the loose tube excluding fibers, τ is the critical shear τc of the gel at zero strain rate which is
assumed to be constant, and D is the equivalent diameter including the inner diameter of the tube and the diameters of
the fibers.

Therefore, the amount of gel compression η in the x direction of this element can be expressed in a
compressibility equation below:

∆V Aη ε ( x)
b=− = = (2)
V∆p A∆xp( x ) p( x )

where b is the compressibility, ∆V is the compressed volume of the gel element volume V, and ε(x) is the compression
per unit length or “strain” of the gel.

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 Since the critical shear is assumed to be constant, the gel strain in this region a can be written as:

τ cπDx
ε ( x) = bp( x) = b( p 0 − ) (3)
A

where the origin of x for this gel strain is at L+δ as shown in Figure 3.

Therefore, the total compressed length for the unheated section can be written as

a a
δ = ò ε ( x ) dx = ò b ( p 0 − τ cπDx / A)dx (4)
0 0

In the heated region, a gel element expands due to heat and is resisted by shear and the other gel, so a pressure change is
not linearly related to the gel shear force as shown in Figures 3 and 5 and the critical shear τc is a function of temperature
or x.

τc(x)

p(x) p(x)+dp(x)

dx

Figure 5: Balance of gel element in heated region.

The pressure of the gel can be written as below from the equilibrium of this element:

p( x) A = A[ p( x) + dp( x)] + τ c ( x)πDdx (5)

The volume change due to temperature can be written as αc∆Tdx for a small element, where αc is the cubic thermal
expansion coefficient, and ∆T(x) is the temperature increase of the element. Therefore, the total change of volume of the
heated gel ∆VT can be written as the combination of thermal expansion and the volume change of the unheated, but
compressed gel as shown in Eq. (4):

L a
∆VT = ò α c ∆T ( x) Adx − ò b ( p 0 − τ cπDx / A)dx (6)
0 0

Substituting Eq. (6) into compressibility Eq. (2), we can derive p0 at L+δ location below

L a

ò α c ∆T ( x) Adx − ò b ( p 0 − τ c πDx / A) dx
∆VT
p0 = a
= 0
a
0 (7)
b( ò α c ∆T ( x) Adx + LA) b( ò α c ∆T ( x) Adx + LA)
0 0

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 From Eq. (3), it is known that ε(x)=0 at x = a, therefore a can be written as:

p0 A
a= (8)
τ cπD

Combining Eqs. (7) and (8), p0 can be solved by using the following equation:

L L
bA
p 02 + [bα c ò ∆T ( x) d ( x) + bL] p 0 − α c ò ∆T ( x )dx = 0 (9)
2τ cπD 0 0

3.2 Fiber Strain

Once p0 is determined from Eq. (9), then the distance a can be calculated from Eq. (8). The fiber strain can be calculated
in two regions; the heated region and the non-heated but compressed region. For the latter region, the fiber will
experience the shear from the gel because of the movement (compression) of gel. Therefore, fibers are under constant
critical shear (or larger stress, depending on the shear rate) of gel in this area, so the fiber strain εf0 at L+δ can be written
as:

τ cπda
εf0 = (10)
E f Af

where d is the fiber diameter, Ef is the Young’s Modulus of fiber and Af is the fiber area.

For the heated area, the critical shear of gel changes with temperature can be assumed as:

1 1
τ c ( x) = C exp[C ' ( − )] (11)
T ( x) T0

Therefore, the fiber strain of the heated area εfh can be written as:

L +δ

ò πdτ c ( x)dx
ε fh = 0
(12)
E f Af

Then the fiber strain at the peak temperature location εmax can be calculated by adding εf0 and εfh of Eqs. (10) and (12) as:

ε max = ε f 0 + ε fh (13)

3.3 Gel Pressure

The gel pressure is linearly related to length in the unheated but compressed region of length a, which can be written as:

x − (L + δ )
p ( x) = p 0 (1 − ) L +δ ≤ x ≤ a + L +δ (14)
a

However, in the region of the heated gel, the pressure is the solution of Eq. (5). The result of this solution can be written
as:

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 L +δ
τ c ( x)πD
p( x) = p max − ò dx , p ( L + δ ) = p0 (15)
0
A

4. RESULTS

4.1 Fiber Strain

For a SL17 LW cable, the temperature profile of the gel in the loose tube during the PE extrusion process and its
approximate temperature function are shown in Figure 1. If we apply this function to Eq. (9), and the peak temperature
location at 2 and L at 10 in Figure 1, we calculate that p0 is 3191 psi, εf0 is 0.4% and εfh is 0.37%. Therefore, the fiber
strain εmax at the peak gel temperature is determined to be 0.77% (77 kpsi) from Eq. (13). This is based on the measured
gel critical shear of 95 and 35 pascals at 3 and 25°C respectively. For thixotropic gel the shear stress is higher with
increasing shear rate, therefore the strain calculated to be 0.77% is about the minimum value and it may be slightly
higher at a higher shear rate. This result is consistent with the measured data of 70 to 80 kpsi on the abraded fiber trial.

4.2 Gel Pressure

From Eqs. (14) and (15), the gel pressure in a loose tube of this process can be determined and plotted below:

10

6
relative pressure

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
relative distance from peak temperature

Figure 6: Relative gel pressure in loose tube through PE insulation process.

5. CONCLUSIONS

This paper demonstrates that shear of gel contributes to the fiber strain in the PE insulation process. It
explains that the thermal expansion of the gel due to temperature change from the extrusion process induces
gel movement. This gel movement couples to the fiber by shear force and causes the fiber to stretch. The
maximum fiber stretch occurs at the peak temperature of the gel and reduces gradually along the extrusion
line as the gel temperature decreases. The model accurately proves the stress/strain level of the fiber in this
process. It predicts the highest stress in cabling but is significantly low compared to the required fiber
strength. Cable core pressure also can be predicted for cable design and process concerns.

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 6. REFERENCES

1. S. Capouilliet, et al., “A Fiber Bragg Grating Measurement System for Monitoring Optical Fiber Strain” Proceedings
of the 50th IWCS, Nov. 2001, pp 240-248.

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