Wear characterisation techniques for fatigued wire ropes

Fatigue performance of wire ropes running over sheaves is limited by several friction and wear problems, i.e. wear between external wires and sheaves, and wear between wires. The aim of this paper is to describe the set up of different characterisation techniques and develop a methodology to characterise the wear between wires in small ropes. The samples are obtained from ropes tested in a customised fatigue test bench. The characterisation procedure consists of analysing and measuring wear scars in different wires of the rope. Three different techniques have been selected for this purpose: macroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and confocal profilometry. With these techniques, a method to characterise fatigued wire ropes has been developed. In this way, evolution of wear traces along ropes life can be studied.

Author(s): M.A. Urchegui, M.A, Madoz, W. Tato and X. Gomez