EuroWire September 2016

Technical article

4.2.3.2 Temperature cycling test According to the requirements of the clients, the flat cable went through a temperature cycling test from – 20ºC to +60ºC, and kept 12 hours for -20ºC and +60ºC, respectively. The whole temperature cycling test included two cycling process. When the experiment was over, the additional attenuation of the flat cable was tested, and the results showed that it was much less than 0.1dB which was the acceptance criteria of the client. 4.2.4 Flame retardant test The flat cable designed was mainly used for the drop application, and the sub-unit of the cable should satisfy flame retardant requirements. A vertical flame propagation for a single sample according to IEC 60332-1-2 standard was carried out. After the flame application reached 60 seconds, the distance between the lower edge of the top support and the onset of charring was 120mm. cable demonstrated in this paper is safe for the drop application. 5 Conclusions The first and second designs of the flat cable could both satisfy good processing performance, and the test results showed that they also both have excellent transmission, mechanical, environmental and flame retardant properties. These two kinds of flat cable could apply in the FTTH application and give the operator more choice for the drop application. n 6 Acknowledgments The authors wish to thank the staff of Fiber Home Telecommunication Technologies Co Ltd for their support. Special thanks to the IWCS staff for the articles in this year’s publication. In other words, the riser

[4] IEC 60794-1-22 Ed 1.0: Optical Fibre Cables-Part 1-22: Generic specification- Basic optical cable test procedures- Environmental test methods. [5] IEC 60332-1-2 Edition 1.0: Test on electric and optical fibre cables under fire conditions- Part 1-2: Test for vertical flame propagation for a single insulated wire or cable- Procedure for 1kW pre-mixed flame. Paper courtesy of the 64 th IWCS Technical Symposium, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, November 2015.

▲ ▲ Figure 3 : The tensile limit test of the cable

The breakage appeared as the force increased to 2,300N, and this value far exceeded the users’ requirements. 4.2.2.2 Crush test In this test, the specified crush force was 500N, and the time for imposed pressure was 1 min. The result obtained for the 500N load is shown in Figure 4 , where there was almost no change for the attenuation during the test, even at the high load. The additional attenuation was reversible and there was no damage to the cable outer sheath.

CRUSH3

▲ ▲ Figure 4 : Crush performance for the cable

4.2.3 Environmental property Water penetration and temperature cycling test according to IEC 60794-1-22 F5and IEC 60794-1-22 F1, respectively, were carried out and the results are shown in the following section. 4.2.3.1 Water penetration test The water penetration test was carried out on a 3m flat cable sample; the cable must sustain 1m height of water for 24 hours. After this there should be no water penetration. Five samples were cut to verify the water penetration performance of the cable, and all of the five samples passed the test.

7 References

Qin Yu, Fei Qian, Liming Chen, Qingqing Qi, Shiying Wang, Huiping Shi, Cheng Liu FiberHome Telecommunication

[1] Qingqing Qi, Kai Fu “A new all-dielectric aerial cable for FTTH access network,” Proceedings of 63 rd IWCS (2014). [2] Enrico Consonni, Paolo Marelli, “Latest developments on high fibre count cables for metro/access networks dedicated to FTTH applications”, Proceedings of the 57 th IWCS (2008). [3] Mechanical performance for cables: IEC 60794-1-2 Ed 2.0: Optical Fibre Cables- Part 1-2: Generic specification- Basic optical cable test procedures.

Technologies Co Ltd Wuhan, Hubei, China Tel : +86 27 87420569 Email : qyu@fiberhome.com

72

www.read-eurowire.com

September 2016