US 5,963,699 AGranted

Optical fiber mechanical splice

AssigneesFujikura Ltd., Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation

InventorsToshiyuki Tanaka, Yasuhiro Tamaki, Hiroshi Yokosuka, Shinji Nagasawa, Mitsuru Kihara

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

Productivity of switching optical connections is improved significantly with the mechanical splice presented. A single fiber cable or a fiber tape, with the bare fiber exposed at the tip, is inserted from the terminal ends of an aligner element, and are clamped between a lid and a base member of the aligner element, A U-shaped spring clamp is coupled to the aligner element to secure the cables clamped in the aligner element. After the aligner element is closed and coupled into the spring clamp, wedge insertion openings provided in the front face of the aligner element enable to lift the lid member from the base member sufficiently to enable removal of one or both of the cables. The mechanical splice is constructed simply and ruggedly so that cables can be connected or disconnected manually by coupling the aligner element into or decoupling from the spring clamp. The external shape of the aligner is angular, and permits stable handling on workbench or with tools, thus leading to improved productivity in field installation as well as in assembly operations.

Claims9

Dependent claims

An optical fiber mechanical splice, for providing an optical connection by abutting optical fibers, comprising:

an aligner element having a split-rod configuration comprised of a base member and a lid member for clamping an optical fiber in-between to provide a cable housing unit, wherein said alignment element can be opened by a wedge inserted under pressure from a side;
a spring clamp having a U-shaped profile for retaining said cable housing unit closed by clamping said aligner element within an open section and providing vertical compression forces;
a fiber housing groove, for retaining said optical fiber inserted between opposing surfaces which are formed on an opposing lid surface of said lid member and/or an opposing base surface of said base member;
wherein said open section is shaped to enable insertion of said aligner element, and a longitudinal middle section of said fiber housing groove is shaped to accommodate abutted base optical fibers for optical aligning, and said fiber housing groove is arranged so as to enable optical aligning of said optical fibers inserted through each end of said aligner element by abutting said bare optical fibers in said longitudinal middle section.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.