Securing safety of ropes with a visual rope inspection system

Challenge: In all systems with rope operations like ropeways or mining shafts it is necessary to visually check he ropes regularly for external damages. Traditionally, ropes are inspected by several employees at very low speed while they are trying to detect damages. This process is not only very time-consuming, but also error prone such that the inspection results are often neither reliable nor well documented.

 Solution: the rope inspection systems Winspect (for ropeways) and Minespect (for mining shafts) use 4 cameras, to monitor the surface of a rope. The images are stored in a PC and evaluated be a software algorithm. This algorithm is evaluating the diameter and lay length of the rope continuously and is searching for rope defects ~ such as wire breakage on the surface. The operator can comfortably review and classify the results on a computer in a regular office and is not exposed to potential dangers while doing the inspection. The system provides additional information to the operator like graphs of diameter and lay length. In that manner, all results are well documented and inspections can be performed efficiently.

Author(s): Söhnchen, R.