Table of Contents

 1     Scope          
 2     References
 3     Definitions
 4     Abbreviations and acronyms             
 5     Conventions            
 6     General comments on reliability      
 7     Optical reliability    
        7.1     Bending loss 
        7.2     Hydrogen      
        7.3     Impact of nuclear radiation    
        7.4     Attenuation stability 
 8     Mechanical reliability            
        8.1     General comments on mechanical strength of optical fibres    
        8.2     Power law theory       
        8.3     The time to failure or fibre lifetime     
        8.4     Static and dynamic stress corrosion parameter and impact on reliability             
        8.5     Relationship between proof stress and proof testing on reliability         
        8.6     Handlability of optical fibre    
        8.7     Tests that measure aspects of mechanical reliability    
 9     Strain due to bends tension, to axial tension or a combination of the two mechanisms           
10     Impact of cable properties on reliability      
       10.1     Fibre strain and cable strain  
       10.2     Installation load versus long-term load            
Appendix I – Lifetime expectation in the case of small radius bending of single-mode fibre    
        I.1     Introduction  
        I.2     General aspects of failure characteristics under small radius bending   
        I.3     Network and network failure examples             
        I.4     Fibre lifetime considerations  
        I.5     Notes on calculating values in Tables I.1, I.2 and I.3       
        I.6     Conclusion      
Appendix II – Long-term reliability of deployed optical fibre cables    
       II.1     Introduction  
       II.2     Factors having an impact on the objectives for the reliability of deployed optical cables    
       II.3     Example of objectives for the reliability of laid optical cables    
Bibliography