Brian Risch is the Materials Technology Manager for Prysmian Telecom North America. He holds a B.A. degree in physics from Carleton College and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Brian has more than 25 years of experience in the study of structure property relationships in polymeric materials and materials reliability. Brian has over 20 years of experience in the fiber optic cable business. Prior to working for Prysmian, Brian worked for Alcatel and Draka specializing in cable materials and fundamental material reliability. Brian also has 6 years of experience at Hewlett Packard doing research in electronic materials reliability and failure analysis. Brian also holds more than 50 US and international patents.
Abstract: New, robust flexible ribbon designs with fiber counts other than traditional 12f flexible ribbon designs are introduced. Ribbon designs with fiber counts of 16 and 24 are introduced which allow very high fiber density cables combined with the capability for mass fusion splicing. These added ribbon designs allow improved ribbon and cable compatibility with alternative network configurations. This ribbon structure variants are evaluated for robustness, splice compatibility, and attenuation performance during long term aging and environmental exposure.
