Corning Incorporated

Liam Ruan De Paor

Steven Roy Burdette

James Gary Anderson

David John Ulrich

Lewis Kirk Klingensmith

Dana Craig Bookbinder

Pushkar Tandon

Gautam Narendra Kudva

Robert Brett Desorcie

George Clinton Shay

Michael George Shultz

Eunyoung Park

Gary Graham Squier

Patrick Aaron Parks

Kenneth William Aniolek

Amanda Lee Billings

Li Yang

L Kirk Klingensmith

Thomas Edward Kirby

A method for forming an optical fiber preform and fibers drawn from the preform. The method includes forming a soot cladding monolith, inserting a consolidated core cane into the internal cavity, and processing the resulting core-cladding assembly to form a preform. Processing may include exposing the core-cladding assembly to a drying agent and/or dopant precursor, and sintering the core-cladding assembly in the presence of a reducing agent to densify the soot cladding monolith onto the core cane to form a preform. The preform features low hydroxyl content and low sensitivity to hydrogen. Fibers drawn from the preform exhibit low attenuation losses from absorption by the broad band centered near 1380 nm.

Method of making optical fibers in a reducing atmosphere

A glass manufacturing apparatus comprises a forming device configured to produce a glass ribbon and a control device configured to independently operate a first pull roll apparatus and a second pull roll apparatus such that at least one of a first upstream pair of draw rolls rotates with a substantially constant torque and at least one of a first downstream pair of draw rolls rotates with a substantially constant angular velocity. In further examples, methods of manufacturing a glass ribbon are provided.

Glass manufacturing apparatus and methods

In a vertical glass drawing process, an edge guiding assembly () located between a glass forming apparatus () and a glass sheet separating apparatus () reduces horizontal motion of the glass ribbon () from which the glass sheets () are removed and results in the reduction of the difference in stress levels between the top and bottom edges of a glass sheet () made by the process. The edge guiding assembly also provides a reduction of the variation of stress levels between successive sheets of glass made by the vertical drawing process.

Methods and apparatus for reducing stress variations in glass sheets produced from a glass ribbon

A pull roll apparatus and method are described herein that can control a cross-draw tension and a down-draw tension of a glass sheet while manufacturing the glass sheet. In one embodiment, the pull roll apparatus includes a first driven stub roll pair, a second driven stub roll pair and a control device (e.g., PLC) that controls the first and second driven stub roll pairs while a first edge portion of the glass sheet is drawn between two vertically downtilted rolls associated with the first driven stub roll pair and while an opposing second edge portion of the glass sheet is drawn between two vertically downtilted rolls associated with the second driven stub roll pair. If desired, the pull roll apparatus may include a pulling roll assembly (located below the first and second driven stub rolls) or another set of driven stub roll pairs (located below the first and second driven stub roll pairs).

Pull roll apparatus for controlling glass sheet tension

Pull roll apparatus and method for controlling glass sheet tension

Methods and apparatus for controlling the stress in, and the shape of, the glass ribbon () formed in a downdraw glass manufacturing process (e.g., the fusion downdraw process) are provided. In certain embodiments, the control is achieved by cooling the bead portions () of the ribbon () at a rate which provides a heat flux Q&#x2033;at the thickest part of the bead () which is given by Q&#x2033;=Q&#x2033;+&#x394;Q&#x2033;, where (i) Q&#x2033;is the heat flux at a transverse position adjacent to the bead portion () at which the ribbon's thickness equals 1.05*t, where tis the final thickness at the ribbon's center line (), and (ii) &#x394;Q&#x2033;&#x2267;(t/t&#x2212;1)Q&#x2033;+10 kilowatts/meter, where tis the thickness of the thickest part of the bead portion. The cooling can take place along the entire length of the ribbon () or at selected locations, e.g., in the portion () of the draw which includes the glass transition temperature region () or the portion () of the draw where individual glass sheets () are cut from the ribbon ().

Thermal control of the bead portion of a glass ribbon

Growing community of inventors

Hampstead, NC, United States of America

Liam Ruan De Paor