Service life prediction of running steel wire ropes

Abstract

Very high strength enables wire ropes to support large tensile forces and to run over sheaves with relative small diameters. Very high strength steel wires had already been in existence for more than a hundred years when patenting, a special heating process was introduced and the drawing process improved. Since then, further improvements have only occurred in relatively small steps. Wire ropes always have a limited service life. Therefore they must be inspected and examined at regular intervals so that they are replaced well before failure. End-users of machinery with steel wire ropes, however, would like to have a rough estimation of the service life of the ropes already in the early stages of conceiving their machines, so that they can, if necessary, improve the reeving system. This is one of the reasons why for many years extensive research is carried out in order to improve calculations for predicting the service life of wire ropes. This paper is meant to offer an overview information on the method of calculation and to demonstrate the potential and limitations of the forecasting procedure for service-life prediction of running steel wire ropes.