Corrugated armor for providing protection and tensile stiffness

Communication cables that are strung between poles or those buried in the ground are subject to abuse such as, for example, attack by rodents, mechanical abrasion and crushing. Attacks by gophers and other burrowing rodents on buried cable and by squirrels on aerial cable have been a continuing concern. Testing with gophers has evolved into a normal criteria in the industry for evaluating cables. Gophers, for example, have been shown to exert biting pressure as high as 18,000 psi. Cables having an outside diameter below a critical size of about three-quarters of an inch (0.75″) in diameter are more susceptible to being damaged than larger cables because the animals can bite directly down on them, encompassing the entire cable with their jaws. For larger size cables, generally only a scraping or raking action takes place. In fact, on cables exceeding about two inches (2″) in diameter, gopher attacks are rarely observed. A protective cable armor for cable having tensile stiffness and providing structural protection from invasion by foreign objects. The armor comprises a substantially planar sheet member having a length and a width and an intermittent corrugation pattern disposed therein. The intermittent corrugation pattern comprises at least one land extending across the width of the sheet member and having a defined land width. The intermittent corrugation pattern further comprises at least one, groove extending across the width of the sheet member and having a defined groove width, where the defined land width differs from the defined groove width. The land is disposed adjacent the groove. The sheet member can also be disposed in a substantially tubular form.