Remedies to Thermal Radiation in Fused Silica Optical Fibers

During fire incidents, optical fibers located with-in a fire-resistant cable are usually exposed to temperatures of 800◦C to 1000◦C. Hot fibers generate narrowband thermal (incandescent) radiation and collect broadband thermal radiation originating from the heated surroundings. The power of the second component, initially negligible, increases with time due to the rising number of fiber cracks and other defects acting as couplers for external radiation. Thermal radiation may interfere with fiber attenuation measurements performed during a fire test, but is rather unlikely to prevent data transmission with typical GbE and 10 GbE transceivers during a fire. This problem may be remedied by combining the following methods: using single mode fibers instead of multimode fibers, using bandpass filters to block thermal radiation, and selecting proper transmitter power, wavelength and photodetector.