Fatigue Behaviour of Locked Coil Ropes Over Roller Chains

This paper traces the development of the investigations, carried out at the Institute of Lightweight Structures and Ropeways of the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, concerning the fatigue behaviour of locked coil ropes bent over a roller chain. The work described here is a continuation of work reported at the OIPEEC Round Table conference in Zurich in 1989 (Kopanakis, (1989)). At the present stage of the investigations it has been found that the influence of ropeway operation, installation and the rope itself is as follows :
- The distribution of bending cycles shows a clear maximum which causes   a relatively large number of strain cycles within a short part of the bending area of a ropeway track rope
- Improvement of the rope construction and lubrication results in a significant life improvement.
- Changes of the roller chain / saddle construction (of the order of   magnitude tested) do not result in a level of improvement.
- Precision manufacture of the roller chain and saddle (R = const.) avoids additional fatigue damage.
- A service load reduction gives a significant extension of the rope life.

Author: G. Kopanakis