In telecommunications and fiber optics, ovality or noncircularity is the degree of deviation from perfect circularity of the cross section of the core or cladding of the fiber.
The cross-sections of the core and cladding are assumed to a first approximation to be elliptical, and ovality is defined to be twice the third flattening of the ellipse,
This dimensionless quantity is between 0 and 1, and may be multiplied by 100 to express ovality as a percentage.
Alternatively, ovality of the core or cladding may be specified by a tolerance field consisting of two concentric circles, within which the cross section boundaries must lie.
In computational chemistry, especially in QSAR[1] studies, ovality[2] refers to, a measure of how the shape of a molecule approaches a sphere (at one extreme) or a cigar shape (at the other).