Optical fiber may experience cyclic stresses at frequencies ranging from a few hertz in aerial cables to over a kilohertz due to vibration of machinery. The fatigue behavior of brittle materials typically gives times to failure that correspond to a suitably time-averaged applied stress and is independent of the frequency. Previous studies have been limited in the frequencies used but generally show agreement with this simple model. In this paper we describe results for the cyclic fatigue behavior of high strength fused silica optical fibers as a function of stress amplitude and frequency in the range of zero to 100 Hz. The results confirm that fatigue of this material is indeed accurately described by the subcritical crack growth model and the results are shown to be frequency independent in the range studied.
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