• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.124-130
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• 2014

In a mass manufacturing system of optical fibers, the sufficient cooling of glass fibers freshly drawn from a draw furnace is essential, asinadequately cooled glass fibers can lead to poor resin coating on the fiber surface and possibly fiber breakage during the process. In order to improve fiber cooling at a high drawing speed, it is common to use a helium injection into a glass fiber cooling unit in spite of the high cost of the helium supply. The present numerical analysis carried out three-dimensional thermo-fluid computations of the cooling gas flow and heat transfer on moving glass fiber to determine the cooling performance of glass fiber cooling depending on the method of helium injection. The results showed that afront injection of helium is most effective compared to a uniform or rear injection for reducing air entrainment into the unit and thus cooling the glass fibers at a high fiber drawing speed. However, above a certain amount of injected helium, there was no more increase of the cooling effect regardless of the helium injection method.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.110-115
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• 2011

A modern optical fiber manufacturing process requires the sufficient cooling of glass fibers freshly drawn from the heated and softened silica preform in the furnace, since the inadequately cooled glass fibers are known to cause improper polymer resin coating on the fiber surface and to adversely affect the product quality of optical fibers. In order to greatly enhance the fiber cooling effectiveness at increasingly high fiber drawing speed, it is necessary to use a dedicated glass fiber cooling unit with helium gas injection between glass fiber drawing and coating processes. The present numerical study features a series of three-dimensional flow and heat transfer computations on the cooling gas and the fast moving glass fiber to analyze the cooling performance of glass fiber cooling unit, in which the helium is supplied through the discretely located rectangular injection holes. The air entrainment into the cooling unit at the fiber inlet is also included in the computational model and it is found to be critical in determining the helium purity in the cooling gas and the cooling effectiveness on glass fiber. The effects of fiber drawing speed and helium injection rate on the helium purity decrease by air entrainment and the glass fiber cooling are also investigated and discussed.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.92-98
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• 2010

In a modern high speed drawing process of optical fibers, it is necessary to use helium as a cooling gas in a glass fiber cooling unit in order to sufficiently cool down the fast moving glass fiber freshly drawn from the heated silica preform in the furnace. Since the air is entrained unavoidably when the glass fiber passes through the cooling unit, the helium is needed to be injected constantly into the cooling unit. The present numerical study investigates and analyzes the air entrainment using an axisymmetric geometry of glass fiber cooling unit. The effects of helium injection rate and direction on the air entrainment rate are discussed in terms of helium purity of cooling gas inside the cooling unit. For a given rate of helium injection, it is found that there exists a certain drawing speed that results in sudden increase in the air entrainment rate, which leads to the decreasing helium purity and therefore the cooling performance of the glass fiber cooling unit. Also, the helium injection in aiding direction is found to be more advantageous than the injection in opposing direction.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.92-95
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• 2011

In manufacturing optical fibers, the process starts with the glass fiber drawing from the heated and softened silica preform in the furnace, and the freshly drawn glass fiber is still at high temperature when it leaves the glass fiber drawing furnace. It is necessary to cool down the glass fiber to the ambient temperature before it then enters the fiber coating applicator, since the hot glass fiber is known to cause several technical difficulties in achieving high quality fiber coating. As the fiber drawing speed keeps increasing, a current manufacturing of optical fibers requires a dedicated cooling unit with helium gas injection. A series of three-dimensional flow and heat transfer computations are carried out to investigate the effectiveness of fiber cooling in the fiber cooling unit. The glass fiber cooling unit is simplified into the long cylindrical enclosure at which the hot glass fiber passes through at high speed, and the helium is being supplied through several injection slots of rectangular shape along the cooling unit. This study presents and discusses the effects of helium injection rates on the glass fiber cooling rates.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.08a
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• pp.296-296
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• 2010

ICRF 시스템을 이용한 방전세정인 ICWC(Ion Cyclotron Wall Cleaning)는 ITER와 DEMO 같은 초전도 자석을 이용하는 토카막에서 토카막 shot 중간에 자장을 낮추지 않고 바로 방전 세정을 할 수 있는 방법이다. 토카막에서 방전세정은 탄소나 산소 화합물과 같은 불순물을 제거하여 방사에 의한 플라즈마 냉각을 막고 토카막 초기 start-up시 진공 챔버 벽면으로부터 의도하지 않은 연료주입을 제거하는 역할을 한다. 본 연구에서는 ICWC 방전 세정 최적화를 위해 플라즈마의 불순물 제거 특성을 수소 유량의 크기와 ICRF 펄스의 duty ratio를 바꿔가면서 관찰하였다. ICRF 전력은 44.2 MHz에서 20-50 kW 가 입사되었으며 자장은 3 T에서 고정되었다. 운전압력은 $10^{-4}$ mbar 정도이다. 헬륨의 유량을 400 sccm으로 고정한 후 수소의 유량을 40 sccm에서 160 sccm까지 증가시켜가면서 제거율을 관측하였다. 그 결과 수소 유량의 증가에 따라 제거율이 증가하는 불순물과 오히려 감소하는 불순물이 있음이 관측되었다. 제거율이 증가되는 불순물 group은 charge-to-mass ratio가 26, 28, 40, 44이고 감소하는 불순물 group은 18, 20, 32 이다. 펄스의 duty ratio를 1/9(on/off) 초에서 5/5(on/off) 초로 증가시킴에 따라 제거율이 증가하는 불순물과 감소하는 불순물이 또한 나타났는데 수소 유량 실험과 그 group에 차이가 없었다. 이러한 실험결과는 수소 유량의 증가나 펄스 길이의 증가에 따라 가스의 종류에 관계없이 모두 증가하거나 감소할 것이라는 예측과는 다른 결과로서 이것에 대한 명료한 해석이 필요하다. 왜냐하면 위와 같은 운전조건에서 효율적인 불순물 제거를 위해서는 불순물 제거 운전 방법이 불순물의 종류에 따라 모두 달라져야 하기 때문이다. 본 연구에서는 이러한 특성을 불순물의 dissociation 에너지 관점에서 해석을 시도하였다.