6.0 Conclusions

The evaluation showed that this fiber optic connector system, when subjected to 18 Grms of random vibration, will not suffer a catastrophic failure. It should be noted that a substantial amount of metal contamination evolved on the termini which had the loosest alignment sleeve. Similar contamination was not found on the three remaining termini pairs. This suggests that there should be a limit set for the "insertion force" or "retention force" of the alignment sleeve with each of the mating termini. A measurement of the retention force of the alignment sleeves on the three unaffected termini pairs would give a indication of an acceptable value.

Another source of large sized contamination seemed be the backshell where debris freely moved to the mating area during termini insertion or due to handling. This contamination debris- metal flakes and ground pieces of grommet and insert material - must be removed. Attempts to remove the visible material (on the outer surfaces of the connector) were not very successful. This indicates that some type of cleaning procedure should be developed for use with these connectors (when using optical termini), especially after the termini have been inserted. Improvement of the insertion and removal mechanisms, the tools, internal retention mechanism or termini clearance space inside the connector, would likely reduce the occurrence of the organic debris.

The termini with the most rough cladding outer diameter seemed to degrade the most significantly with respect to surface scratches and the number and size of rough spots.. The terminus side not protected by the alignment sleeve during insertion into the connector, tended to show a greater increase in surface features though some of the termini pairs (both halves) did not change at all. This suggests that polishes (or coating removal) which leave rough edges will most likely degrade with handling.

Although surface defects in the glass fiber should be avoided for long term reliability, the results of this evaluation did not link their presence with short term degredation in optical performance. The mild thermal preconditioning enabled at least one defect to grow into a crack. More rigorous conditioning performed on the cables may produce more cracks.