A Computational Investigation of Thermal Effects on Resin Coating Flows in an Optical Fiber Drawing System

Abstract

In manufacturing optical fibers, there has been intense research efforts of continually increasing fiber drawing speed to improve productivity. However, higher speed fiber drawing poses new challenge in many areas of optical fiber manufacturing. In this paper, thermal effects on coating resin flow in an unpressurized coating applicator are studied numerically. Present simulation results found that higher fiber drawing speed leads to severe viscous heating in coating resin flow and significant increase of resin temperature, which in turn leads to substantial viscosity decrease. These thermal effects profoundly alter the resin flow patterns and velocity profiles in the coating die and they should be considered in controlling the final coating thickness.