Splicing costs

Bulyko, I., AND OsTENDORF, M. Unit selection for speech S5mthesis using splicing costs with weighted finite state transders. In Proceedings of Eurospeech 2001 (2001). 

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Light wave technologies provide a number of special challenges for polymeric materials. Polymer fibers offer the best potential for optical communications in local area network (LAN) applications, because their large core size makes it relatively cheap to attach connectors to them. There is a need for polymer fibers that have low losses and that can transmit the bandwidths needed for LAN applications the aciylate and methacrylate polymers now under study have poor loss and bandwidth performance. Research on monomer purification, polymerization to precise molecular-size distributions, and weU-controlled drawing processes is relevant here. There is also a need for precision plastic molding processes for mass prodnction of optical fiber connectors and splice hardware. A tenfold reduction in the cost of fiber and related devices is necessaiy to make the utilization of optical fiber and related devices economical for local area networks and tlie telecommunications loop. 

Using the unidirectional stiffness properties of the composite material (HTA/6376) in Table 11.1, the laminates were modelled with one orthotropic solid element per ply in the thickness direction, leading to 16 elements through-thickness for both the splice plate and skin plate. As before, the titanium bolts were modelled with isotropic material properties, with material constants Eb = 110 GPa, Vb = 0.29. Linear 8-node hexa-hedral brick elements with a reduced integration scheme were used for the laminates and bolts. This element formulation was used to reduce the cost of the analysis and size of the output files, which were very large. 

Conventional concrete structures, and prefabricated steel structures assembled on site and filled with concrete after placement are used in various structures. Precast concrete modules would also be used. Wide use of removable formwork is employed to limit steel exposure to potential corrosion. Prefabrication of reinforced rebar modules is extensively used. In some places mechanical rebar splices are used to reduce the weight of prefabricated modules. All of these techniques have been employed in previous nuclear power plant construction. Steel structures such as the air baffle, and the containment vessel are constructed of steel panels. Panels are made of stiffened steel or corrugated plate depending on availability and cost panels for the baffle are designed with thermal expansion of the containment vessel in mind. Future inspection and maintenance are taken into consideration. 

Indoor/outdoor applications involve cables which typically run short distances to make interconnections within and between adjacent buildings. These cables are fuUy resistant to the typical outside plant environment, but the overall performance requirements are typically not as stringent as those for long-length outside plant communications cables. These cables are used primarily to avoid the need for a costly extra splice point where the telecommunication system cabling transitions from outside to inside, and thus are employed in only relatively short lengths. 

When constrained duct or conduit space precludes the use of multiple sheaths, a splice should be used to consolidate the sheaths into one higher fiber count sheath. Combine as many cables as possible at a single splice point, since the incremental cost per additional fiber splice is less than the cost for splicing at different locations. It is important to analyze the entire system when planning splice points. For example, if a planned cross connect is near a manhole that is being considered for a splice point, it might make more sense to route the cables to the cross connect, so that the splice point is combined with the termination point. This can result in substantial labor cost savings (Fig. 9.102). 

A small amount of slack cable (20-30 ft) can be useful in the event cable repair or relocation is needed. If a cable is cut, the slack can be shifted to the damaged point, necessitating only one splice point in the permanent repair, rather than two splices if an additional length of cable is added. This results in reduced labor and hardware costs and link loss budget savings. 

The use of hybrid cables containing single-mode and multimode fibers is recommended for interbuilding backbone networks. In a hybrid cable, single-mode and multimode fibers are placed in different buffer tubes or bundles within the same cable. This provides easy identification at splice points and allows termination into separate panels at cross-connect points. Additionally, use of hybrid cables reduces installation costs... 

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