Measurement of cyclic bending strains in steel wire rope

Abstract

This paper reports strain gauge measurements of cyclic bending strain in the wires of a six-strand right-handed Lang's lay steel wire rope running on and off a pulley. The paper describes the measurement procedures and presents the results for the two tests conducted which had different gauge configurations along and around the sample. It was found that the strain waveforms observed had some similarities with those reported elsewhere and the magnitudes of strains matched theoretical predictions. However, in contrast with behaviour reported for fluctuating tension, the initial differences between and along wires rapidly attenuated. This observation helps to explain reported similarities in bending fatigue performance of ropes from different sources which contrasts with the very significant differences in characteristics found in tensile fatigue. The dependence of wire strain amplitude on rope bending deformation further contrasts with tensile fatigue in which wire strain range is dependent on the local sharing of axial load.