NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF THE EFFECTS OF RESIN SUPPLY TEMPERATURE ON OPTICAL FIBER COATING THICKNESS

피복재 공급온도가 광섬유 피복두께에 미치는 영향에 대한 전산유동해석

Fiber coatings are essential in optical fiber manufacturing, since they provide the protective layers from the surface damages and the adequate fiber strength. Flow and temperature fields of coating liquid in a fiber coating applicator are numerically investigated by using a commercial CFD software. The main focus of this computational study is on the thermal effects by viscous dissipation and the effects of coating supply temperature on the final fiber coating thickness. The numerical results reveal that the thermal effects play a major role in the high-speed optical fiber coating process and give substantial influences on the determination of coating thickness. Changing the supply temperature of coating liquid is found to relieve the radial variation of coating liquid viscosity in the coating die and it can be an effective way to control the fiber coating thickness.