USA

FIBER IN METAL TUBES

Layer Options

General Description

Stainless Steel Tubes can be combined with additional layers, which do not necessarily need to be a metal tube too. Such an additional layer gives the final product more strength, protects it against environmental influences, adds transmitting features to a sensing cable and much more. The main parts of the additional components are divided into a reinforcement layer, which is made of stranding wires, and plastic components. All the layers are offered in different grades and sizes. Based on the intended purpose of use, our NBG-team is able to calculate the right layer dimensions and grades, always following the aim of meeting or even exceeding the performance requirements.

Stranding wires

Common Stainless Steel Grades for stranding wires:

ASTM/AISI/ANSI	EN #
304	1.4301
316L	1.4404

Common Nickel Alloy Grades (content of nickel > 30%):

ASTM/AISI/ANSI	EN #
Alloy 825	2.4858
Alloy 625	2.4856

Plastic layer

A fantastic option to ameliorate the features of a Fiber in Metal Tube is to add one or more layers of plastic in different grades. As plastic offers a huge range of elasticity, we can, upon request, add plastic layers between the steel tubes or the stranding wires in order to essentially increase the impact performance. It can also be used for increasing the diameter of the Fiber in Metal Tube without adding too much weight. Another option is to add plastic as final layer on top of a cable construction, as it is made with the Universal Cable construction. This is done to protect the stainless steel against corrosion, for enhancement of the crush and impact resistance and the improvement of other great features. For sensing applications, the outer structure of the plastic layer can be grooved in order to enable an accurate application of the surrounding strain to the cable.

As the requirements for fiber optic cables are different, NBG always offers a wide range of plastic grades. Two of the most common plastic grades are shown in the table below: