Research at Rutgers University is turning the production of optical fibers, once considered an art, into a precise science with guidelines based on computer models.

A half century ago, optical glass fibers were still a novelty, and tools of the trade were limited. Parts of one early contraption for making the fibers, also known as drawing the fibers, included discarded two-pound boxes of oatmeal.

Today, fiber production remains simple in principle. To begin, a cylindrical, optically pure glass rod called a preform is heated inside a small furnace to its softening point of about 1600° C. A fiber is drawn from the preform and moves along to a cooling channel, where circulating convective gases reduce the temperature to about 150° C. A coating is applied, and the plastic-bound fiber is cured in an ultraviolet oven before it is spooled around a take-up drum. Enormous take-up spools wind fibers drawn in huge automated towers.

Despite the technological advances and the disappearance of oatmeal boxes, however, much of fiber drawing is still considered an art. Only recently, with the modeling work of such researchers as Yogesh Jaluria of Rutgers University, has it progressed towards a precise and predictable science. Using supercomputers at the University of Kentucky and Boston University, both Alliance Partners for Advanced Computational Services, Jaluria and his colleagues are establishing some of the first practicable guidelines for fiber drawing based on numerical modeling.