The effect of wire rope “safety” clamps on rope terminations

Some technical regulations require an additional safety clamp to act as a ‘back-up’ for the filled conical socket end connection of aerial tramway ropes. This kind of clamp is sometimes also used on suspended bridges for the same purpose. The authors wondered whether this additional clamp would really increase the safety of the termination and therefore conducted a series of tests. This paper reports on tensile fatigue tests conducted on Ø16 mm full locked coil (FLC) and six-strand ropes with and without a rope safety clamp installed. It has been found that the tensile fatigue performance of the six strand rope is reduced by about 60% and that of the FLC by about 80%. The authors describe the tests undertaken and discuss the failure mechanism of the ropes with the clamps installed.

Author(s): I.M.L. Ridge, J.M. Teissier and R. Verreet