Alternate Prooftester for High-Strength Optical Fibers

Reproducibly, non-destructive methods of prooftesting continuous multi-kilometer lengths of high strength (>200 ksi) optical fiber are important in high performance applications of lightguide technology. An alternate prooftester, based on the concept of continuously imparting a constant strain to the optical fiber as it passes through, has been built and tested. The constant strain design is somewhat simpler and has some rather attractive advantages over currently-used prooftesters. The constant strain method is explained and prooftest data which substantiates the advantages of the design is presented.