Abstract

This paper presents an introduction to fiber optic cable and the fiber optic communication system. An important phase in the supply of this new technology is to transport the fiber optic cable to the vicinity of service. Cable pulling and cable blowing - laminar flow; piston type - are the two main methods of installing fiber optic cable. Both methods of installation have limiting factors that need to be evaluated in order to perform a successful installation. The limiting factors for laminar type cable blowing are further discussed in this paper. A method was proposed to determine the forces - friction, gravitational, and air blowing forces - acting on a cable during installation. The forces were derived and an experiment was performed to verify the pressure gradient equation. Another experiment was conducted to determine the resistance to bend of a cable in order to predict the normal force exerted on the inner-duct by the cable in a bend section. The derived equations along with the relevant experimental results were used to create a program using Microsoft Excel VBA. The result of the program was compared to the result a real-life installation for validation. The program predicted a 12.7% greater installation distance. However, the program did not account for undulations that were present in the installation route and air loss from the fiber optic installation machine.

Advisor

Patrick Tebbe

Committee Member

Aaron Budge

Committee Member

Harry Petersen

Date of Degree

2015

Language

english

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Mechanical and Civil Engineering

College

Science, Engineering and Technology

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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