How Optical Fiber is Used in Electrical Power Systems

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The electrical power industry faces numerous challenges on a daily basis. Electromagnetic interference to extremes in temperature; providing safe and reliable electricity to our homes or workplaces, power companies depend on a multitude of systems. In order to help protect their employees from dangerous high voltage while maintaining clear communication, many power companies choose fiber optic cable to connect devices in their monitoring and control systems.
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OFS Medical Sterilization

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The use of optical fiber and fiber-optic based sensors in the medical market is constantly growing. Prior to use inside the human body, fibers must be sterilized to ensure they are free of microorganisms and perform well during invasive and noninvasive medical applications such as urology, general surgery, ophthalmology, cardiology, endoscopy, dentistry, and medical sensing.  OFS tested optical fibers with four separate coatings to see the effects of sterilization on attenuation and mechanical strength. Sterilization can generally be defined as any process that destroys all microbial life such as fungi, bacteria, and virus or spore forms. Before our testing, there were only a few studies directly or indirectly related to effects of sterilization on optical and mechanical properties of optical fibers which is why we felt real data knowledge and experience was at the utmost importance in order to best recommend materials for different types of sterilization in addition to which sterilization methods work best.
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Optical Fiber in Factory Automation

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Factory automation has existed since General Motors implemented their automation department in 1947. Since then, companies around the world have been saving time and money using various control systems to improve quality, accuracy and precision.
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Why is the Fiber Twisted?

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Optical fiber shape sensing is a form of distributed sensing that uses scattered signals from optical fibers to ascertain local curvature and twist and thus the shape of a given structure. The twist and bend information is recorded by an interrogator which then reconstructs the fiber shape through a series of geometric formulations. Although shape sensing is aimed towards the medical market, it can be utilized in other markets as well: energy, defense, aerospace, structural health monitoring and other smart structures.
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