Optical fibres coating aging induced by the maritime environment

Abstract

The quality of the optical fiber infrastructure is directly related with the strength of the fiber polymer coating. In this work we have studied the effect of maritime environment in the aging of optical fibers. The results show a decay rate of 0.00766±0.00065 GPa.day-1 for a 35g/L NaCl solution and of 0.01101±0.00133 GPa.day-1 for a 250g/L NaCl solution. The Boltzamann fit presented corroborates the experimental data, which shows that the aging transition period appears sooner for more concentrated solutions. The microscopy and SEM analysis performed confirmed the degradation condition of the fibers under study.

Keywords

• Optical fiber aging
• maritime environment