Alexander Weiss 1 , Arnie Berkers 2 , Eva Boncidai 3 , Knud Bundgaard Jen sen 4 , Marta Garcia S.Emeterio 5 , Klaus Nothofer 5 , Olivier Tatat 6 Draka Comteq Cable Solutions 1 Moenchengladbach, Germany, 2 Delfzijl, The Netherlands, 3 Nuremberg, Germany, 4 Brndby, Denmark, 5 Santander, Spain, 6 Calais, France +49-2166-134-1419 alexander.weiss@draka.com FTTH DROP AND INDOOR CABLES Alexander Weiss 1 , Arnie Berkers, Eva Boncidai, Knud Bundgaard Jen sen 4 , Marta Garcia S.Emeterio 5 , Klaus Nothofer 5 , Olivier Tatat 6 Draka Comteq Cable Solutions 1 Moenchengladbach, Germany, Delfzijl, The Netherlands, Nuremberg, Germany, 4 Brndby, Denmark, 5 Santander, Spain, 6 Calais, France +49-2166-134-1419 alexander.weiss@draka.com Abstract Since some years FTTH networks are installed in many areas. For FTTH outdoor installation different cable designs are applied, such as common outdoor duct or direct buried cables, but also indoor/outdoor designs with halogenfree flame retardent sheath. Most of them are too large to fit as small subscriber drop or indoor FTTH cables. Requirements for small drop cables with HFFR jacket are seen in the market. Being aware of challenging requirements on the field of fire performances of fiber optical cables, the selection of suitable HFFR materials has been made with special accuracy in order to fulfil relevant technical regulations. The cables shall be suitable as drop cables, subscriber cables as well as for indoor installation and offer high mechanical strength. Preferably they shall be applicable as FTTH as well as FTTD cables. The required fiber count is limited; in the first attempt max 4 fibers were requested; except for the riser cable, which has a higher fiber count. Preferably no or just limited amount of gel shall be used in the designs. In this paper we describe different developed new designs. The results of mechanical, environmental and installation tests are presented and discussed. Keywords: FTTH, optical cable, drop cable, subscriber cable, riser cable, optical fiber, bend optimized fiber, flame retardent, fire test 1. Introduction FTTH networks require many different kinds of cables, because such networks cover indoor and outdoor sections, but also the transition in between. To fulfil these requirements outdoor, indoor- outdoor as well as indoor cable designs are necessary. Another fact to be taken into consideration is that a huge variety of installation methods are in practical use, too. Commonly applied technologies are (micro-) duct and direct buried installation, aerial installation, but also on-wall, inside and outside the buildings. In dependence of the local environment of the network the best suited installation methods are selected. Regarding this need cable designs should be suitable for as many as possible installation technologies. To address general requirements of fire protection set by law or customers a HFFR jacket is mandatory. The best suited the HFFR grade is chosen according to the local requirements and fire test specifications to ensure the requested fire protection level. Out of the large range of different cable designs this paper focuses on small subscriber drop and indoor cables with high mechanical strength and outstanding low bending radii. All cable constructions described have a HFFR sheath. To address requirements for dry cables a completely dry cable and designs with tight respectively semi-tight buffer tubes are presented. To offer the best achievable cable bend performance bend optimized BendBright XS fibers were used for some cables, too. These fibers fulfil both, the ITU-T specifications G.652 class D and G.657 class A. Their bend performance is even better, it is according to ITU-T G.657 class B. They are especially suited for indoor cables, where their capability to withstand bends with exceptional low radius without increase in attenuation is highly appreciated and offers superior advantages compared to standard SM fibers, since installation routes of indoor cables frequently pass areas where small bends occur, like around edges and corners. As an additional advantage the possible small bend radius allows reduced size connection equipment, like quite small splice closures and termination boxes. 2. Cable Design For FTTH networks as described above no cable design is dedicated or preferred, neither for subscriber drop nor for indoor cables. Different approaches are suitable like central, loose or (semi-) tight buffer tube constructions. Optional cable elements are tapes or yarns which may carry waterswellable materials in case a dry design is desired. Possible other cable elements are strength members or copper conductors. The design is finally completed with a HFFR sheath. Exemplary the following designs are described, a completely dry central tube drop cable, semi-tight buffered fiber cables, a riser cable, a zipcord cable and a composite subscriber cable with tight buffer tubes and copper conductors. 2.1 Central Tube Drop Cable The presented central tube drop cable consists of a HFFR tube and sheath. The tube is completely dry, without gels or yarns, just housing the optical fibers. In the sheath aramid yarns were embedded as strength elements. It has an outer diameter of 4 mm. The design fulfills extremely high mechanical requirements regarding crush and impact properties. Therefore it is perfectly suited for on-wall installation with staples. In parallel it is absolutely free of gels. If needed, swellable materials can be added to get a watertight design. Both, standard ESMF fibers and bend optimized BendBright XS fibers were tested in the design. Main difference between the two fiber types is, as expected, the behavior in bend test. Bend optimized fibers allow 10 mm minimum cable bend radius, whereas standard ESMF fibers allow only minimum 20 mm, which is approximately twice as low than of bend optimized fibers (figure 2). The absolute difference looks small, but the gain in practical safety margin is much bigger, especially since the cables are dedicated to installation environments, where such small bends frequently occur. To achieve a high level of flame retardency a highly flame retardent HFFR grade is necessary. Grades with LOI values up to approximately 40 are not sufficient to pass severe fire tests, because the empty inner tube acts like a chimney. Figure 1. Central Tube Drop Cable Table 1. Type Test Results comment test result BBXS
fibers ESMF fibers
crush test 2000 N, plate-plate, 100 mm, 15 min pass 0.04 dB, no damage 0.02 dB, no damage impact test 10 Nm, 3 impacts, r = 300 mm pass 0.00 dB, no damage 0.00 dB, no damage temperature cycle test -5C to +70C pass 0.05 dB/km av 0.08 dB/km av bend test (RT) 6 turns, 10 cycles pass r = 10mm 0.09 dB max r = 20mm 0.08 dB max Attenuation measured at 1550 nm. Bend Test Result 0,0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1,0 1,2 5 mm 10 mm 18 mm 20 mm 25 mm Bend Radius Change in Attenuation [dB] BBXS ESMF Attenuation measured at 1550 nm. Figure 2. Bend Test, ESMF versus BendBright XS Fibers 2.2 Dry Semi-Tight Design Dry semi-tight designs with one or two fibers are dedicated to subscriber indoor branching. Therefore, such cables are mainly installed on-wall by stapling or gluing. The single fiber cable is a 2.8 mm diameter construction, the cable with two fibers a 4.2 mm diameter construction. Both are based on 900 m semi-tight buffered fibers. In such a design the fiber is decoupled from the 900 m buffer tube. This semi-tight construction guarantees easy end-access of the optical fibers over one meter in less than a minute. Both cables were made with bend optimized BendBright XS fibers. In both cases a highly flame retardant HFFR was used, allowing to pass the vertical burner test according to EN50265-1. Cross sections of the cables and test results are shown below. Figure 3. Semi-Tight Buffered Designs Table 2. Type Test Results comment test result single fiber design dual fiber design crush test 1000 N, plate-plate, 100 mm, 15 min pass 0.03 dB, no damage 0.00 dB, no damage impact test (RT and 5C) 3 Nm, 3 impacts, r = 300 mm pass < 0.01 dB, no damage 0.03 dB, no damage temperature cycle test -5C to +60C pass < 0.01 dB/km < 0.01 dB/km bend test (RT) 6 turns, 10 cycles pass r = 10mm 0.13 dB r = 10mm 0.04 dB Attenuation measured at 1550 nm. 2.3 Riser Cable When there is a need to get many fibers to several distribution points or separate flats in different floors of a building, a riser design is chosen for the vertical installation. This cable has really low weight and size, something very important for a riser application. However, its main advantage in this case is the ability to segregate one or more bundles of fibers per flat, just by opening small windows of approximately 5 cm in length in the outer jacket. This could also allow termination of several fibers in a distribution box of a floor. The riser cable carries a maximum of 48 optical fibers in a 8x6 configuration with several small semi-tight buffer tubes made of a soft material. These modules are loosely placed into the cable center, surrounded by some aramid yarns as strength elements and a HFFR flame retardant jacket. The overall outer cable diameter is approximately 7.6 mm, the weight 50 kg/km. Figure 4. Riser Cable The riser cable has been mechanically and thermally tested in two versions, with standard ESMF fibers and with bend resistant fibers BendBright XS . The results of the tests show, as expected, a better behavior of the bend-optimized fibers, even so both versions passed the targeted requirements. The most amazing difference has been found, as always, in the bend test, where the bend optimized fibers reach max change in attenuation of 0.02 dB for a mandrel of 10 mm radius. This test has been carried out on each module, since the complete cable cannot easily be bend in such small radius. The test is therefore even more severe. Table 3 shows a short summary of the main results. Table 3. Type Test Results comment test result BBXS
fibers ESMF fibers
crush test 2000 N, plate-plate, 100 mm, 15 min pass 0.04 dB no damage (reversible) 1.5 dB (*) no damage (reversible) impact test 5 Nm, 3 impacts, r = 300 mm pass 0.00 dB, no damage 0.01 dB, no damage temperature cycle test -5C to +60C pass 0.05 dB/km 0.10 dB/km av bend test (RT) 6 turns, 10 cycles (on modules) pass r = 10 mm 0.02 dB, max r = 20 mm 1.0 dB max Attenuation measured at 1550 nm. (*) For information purposes only. The specification requested 1400 N load. The attenuation increase through processes during cable manufacturing showed a small difference depending on the fiber type, since the maximum change in attenuation was 0.01 dB/km (at both, 1550 nm and 1625 nm), for the BendBright XS fibers and up to 0.02 dB/km for the ESMF fibers. This confirms that bend- optimized fibers can withstand higher stress on fibers during cabling process than standard ESMF fibers. 2.4 Zipcord Cable Basically, the zipcord cable consists of 2 patchcords of 2.8mm outer diameter each. Each one is made of 900m tight buffered tube surrounded by aramid yarns and a HFFR jacket. The zipcord is splittable into the two single fiber patchcords For a simple demonstration of the behavior of a BendBright XS fiber in comparison with a standard ESMF fiber a zipcord cable having in each branch one fiber of the different fiber types became bend around a single sharp bend like shown in the picture below. Figure 5. Zipcord Cable Figure 6. Bend Test The measured loss during this test was 5.45 dB for the ESMF fiber and only 0.01 dB for the BendBright XS fiber at 1550 nm. 2.5 Composite Cable The presented composite cable consists of four transmission elements, two tight buffered BendBright XS fibers and two insulated copper conductors, wrapped with a polyester non-woven tape, aramid yarns and a HFFR sheath. The cable has an outer diameter of 5.5 mm. This cable is designed for indoor use to connect an optical-electrical converter and supplying that equipment with power using just one cable. Figure 7. Composite Cable Table 4. Type Test Results test result comment crush test 3000 N, plate-plate, 100 mm, 5 min pass 0.00 dB temperature cycle test -30C to +70C pass 0.00 dB, 1550nm & 1625 nm bend test (RT) 2 turns, 5 cycles, r = 10 mm pass 0.01 dB, max bend test (RT) 90 turn, r = 5 mm pass 0.01 dB, max Attenuation measured at 1550 nm, if not stated otherwise. 3. Results of Installation and Fire tests 3.1 Installation Tests 3.1.1 Semi-Tight Design The dual fiber dry semi-tight subscriber cable was submitted to a stapling installation tests. The cable has been stapled against a wall, around a doorframe and around two support beams above the door as shown on the following scheme and pictures. A stapling gun was used, with round shaped staples. Figure 8. Test Setup with Door and Support Beams cable Figure 9. Installation around a Doorframe cable Figure 10. Installation around a Corner The installation path included 15 angles with 90 with relatively sharp bend radius as shown on the pictures; 89 staples were used. During the installation the attenuation was measured at 1550 nm. The attenuation change at the end of the test was 0.05 dB. Figure 11. Tacker, Staples and Cables 3.1.2 Riser Cable For vertical installations in buildings the fiber units of the riser cable will be individually segregated on request to every subscriber. The use of BendBright XS fibers allows to pass significantly smaller bends in the installation route as shown in the following picture. Figure 12. Installation around a Corner 3.1.3 Composite Cable The composite cable was installed on skirting passing four 90 corners using cable clips as shown in the picture. The resulting attenuation increase was only 0.01 dB at 1550 nm, so within the measurement accuracy of 0.05 dB. Figure 13. Installation around Corners 3.2 Fire Tests Flame test requirement for the semi-tight drop cables described in section 2.2 was EN 50265-1. It turned out, that a standard HFFR compound with an LOI in the range of 37 to 40 was not suitable to always safely pass the test on the small cable designs with outer diameters below 5 mm. Usually indoor optical fiber cables with diameter ranging from 8 mm and above only need a standard HFFR compound (LOI of about 35) for passing a single burner test. Compared to larger cables the low wall thickness of HFFR is key for this behavior. Therefore several HFFR materials were tested for making the one and two fiber dry semi-tight subscriber cables, having limit oxygen index (LOI) between 36 to 45. The target was to consistently pass five times in a row, an EN 50265-1 burner test both on the non-aged but also on an aged cable (accelerated aging 7 days 100C). For small subscriber optical fiber cable, it appeared from our tests results that only a highly flame retardant material with a LOI of about 45 allowed to pass this test, especially for the two fiber cable. The test was not consistently passed with a material having a LOI of 38. When the burner is stopped after one minute the flame sometimes continued to very slowly progress along the cable, reaching the top of the sample after 8 to 10 minutes. The sustained burning was due to the autocatalytic effect occurring in the flame retardant material, supported also by the tendency of hot gases to rise in vertical positioned cable, a chimney effect. As secondary impact, the structure of material got porous and friable allowing diffusion of hot vapours from the core through the outer sheath, maintaining a high temperature in the environment. All these undesired factors could be solved by using of high performance flame retardant material. Figure 14. Sample with Low LOI HFFR Compound Figure 15. Sample with High Performance HFFR Compound 4. Conclusions Different types of FTTH subscriber drop, indoor and riser cables were successfully developed. They are approved by many customers for different applications. In parallel to the cables some customers approved bend optimized fibers to benefit from their superior low bending radii. The presented cables are suitable for all applications of FTTH subscriber drop, indoor and riser cables. The range of designs includes completely dry cables as well as designs with tight and semi tight buffer tubes and copper conductors. Their extended robustness allows on-wall installation with staples without damage to fibers and cables. The fire retardence behavior is also quite well, giving the possibility to install cables in fire restricted areas. However, it must be considered, that for small cables HFFR compounds with high LOI must be selected to pass fire tests. All cables can be equipped with standard ESMF fibers as well as with bend optimized fibers like BendBright XS . Bend optimized fibers offer additional advantages, but no constraints in comparison with standard ESMF fibers. The presented BendBright XS fulfil both, the ITU-T specifications G.652 class D and G.657 class A. Their bend performance is even better, it is according to ITU-T G.657 class B. Such bend optimized fibers allow bend radii of about 10 mm for the cables and lead to cables, which are very insensitive regarding kinking and therefore perfectly suited for indoor installation where small bends frequently occur. The presented cables offer a complete range of FTTH cables, covering subscriber drop cables, indoor, indoor/outdoor applications as well as riser cables. 5. References [1] K.Nothofer, Indoor Cabling with Bend-Optimized Fibers Proc. FTTH Council Europe 2007 Conference (2007). [2] Gerard Kuyt, Piet Matthijsse, Laurent Gasca, Louis-Anne de Montmorillon, Arnie Berkers, Mijndert Doorn, Klaus Nothofer, Alexander Weiss, Bend-insensitive single mode fibers used in new cable designs , OC&I conference (2007). [3] M.Garcia, C.Cortines, "Easy-to-Split and Bend Resistant Fig-8 Drop Cable for FTTH Applications", Proc 55 th IWCS (2006), 5-10. 6. Biographies Alexander Weiss obtained his D.Sc. in chemistry of the University of Tbingen in 1990. In the same year he joined AEG (now Draka Comteq). He held various management positions in manufacturing and development of optical fiber cables and is currently Manager Materials of Draka Comteq Cable Solutions EMEA in Moenchengladbach, Germany. E-mail: alexander.weiss@draka.com Arnie Berkers received his M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering in 1987. In the same year he joined Draka Comteq Telecom, IJzerweg 2, 9936 BM Delfzijl, The Netherlands. Today he is responsible for the development of fiber optic cables. E-mail: arnie.berkers@draka.com Eva Boncidai received her Dipl. Ing. Chem. degree in Technology of Organic Chemistry in 1982. Early career in the pharmaceutical industry, study of the stereoisomery of drugs. In 1986 she joined Philips (PKI), now Draka Comteq Cable Solutions EMEA, in Nuremberg Germany. Since then she is responsible for material development with focus on fire performances of materials and cables. E-mail: eva.boncidai@draka.com Knud Bundgaard Jensen received his M.Sc degree in Electrical Engineering and joined NKT in 1968. From 1975 he worked with development of optical fibers and from 1986 with optical fiber cables. Since 1994 responsible for development of fiber optic cables in Draka Comteq Denmark in Brndby. E-mail: knud.bundgaard@draka.com Marta Garcia S. Emeterio received her Masters degree in Physics (with a specialty in Microelectronics) in 1992, from the University of Cantabria (Spain). In 1994, she joined Alcatel Cable Iberica, now Draka Comteq, working as a Product Engineer. During 1997 and 1998 she was as Project leader for the Design Technology Group of Alcatels Development Center (OFCCC)in Claremont, NC. Nowadays, she manages the Development Group of Draka Comteq Iberica, in Spain. E-mail: marta.garcia@draka.com Klaus Nothofer (1956) received his Dipl.-Ing. degree in Telecommunications and joined AEG-Kabel (now Draka Comteq) in 1981. From 1984 he held various management positions in O.F. cable manufacturing, development, and marketing in Alcatel Europe. He is now Manager Development and Engineering for Optical Fiber Cables in Draka Comteq Cable Solutions EMEA. E-mail: klaus.nothofer@draka.com Olivier Tatat received his Engineering degree with a specialty in Materials in 1982. In 1985, he joined Alcatel Cable France (now Draka Comteq). He held several positions in France, USA and Germany in Materials and Optical Fiber Cable Development. Since 2001, he is leading the Development and Engineering Group of Draka Comteq France in Calais. E-mail: olivier.tatat@draka.com