Abstract
The mechanical behaviour of a fibre holding system is studied analytically and by using finite element analysis (FEA). The system consists of anisotropically etched v-grooves in which optical fibres are passively aligned and fixed by flexible holding beam elements along the groove sides. The holding elements have a triangular shape and constant thickness. Three different thicknesses were studied: 3, 6 and 9 µm; with tilting angles in the range of 0 to 45°. The contact between a fibre and a typical beam element is modelled analytically, and expressions for the element-fibre contact force and the maximum element stress are derived using elementary beam theory. The corresponding quantities are also determined by finite element analysis, modelling the system as a contact problem. The results are compared for various parameter combinations and parameter ranges are established for which the validity of the analytical model is sufficient. It is found that generally one-dimensional beam theory is quite accurate for estimating the contact force and the maximum stress. This theory, however, overestimates the contact force slightly. For tilting angles up to 25°, the deviation is less than 10%. For the 3 µm elements, with tilting angles up to 25°, the maximum stress is within 10% of the FEA values. For the 9 µm elements, however, the same deviation is obtained for tilting angles up to 40°.
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