Alternate Prooftester for High-Strength Optical Fibers

Reproducible, 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 rather than a constant weight to the optical fiber has been built and tested. 

The constant strain design is somewhat simpler and has some rather attractive advantages over a widely used version of prooftester. The constant strain method is explained and prooftest data which substantiates the advantages of the design are presented.