Flex fatigue behavior of plastic optical fibers with low bending cycles

Abstract

Flex fatigue behaviour of plastic optical fibres (POFs) with the diameters of 0.2 and 0.3 mm under different pretensions is measured with fatigue life curve by flexometer. The fatigue sensitivity coefficient is calculated by the linear fitting curve of normalised stress versus logarithm of bending cycles. The residual modulus is investigated during the flex fatigue processes. The results exhibit the exponential relationship between applied pretension and numbers of bending cycles at break. It is indicated that the flex fatigue of POFs might be sensitive with high swing angle or swing speed. There is an evident loss of modulus for two POFs with pretensions of 4 and 10% of ultimate tensile strength during 10-times bending cycles. The values of residual modulus of two POFs almost keep constant after 10-times bending cycles.