Condition monitoring of steel wire ropes

Abstract

By utilising the measurements from a commercial acoustic emission sensor system, magnetic tester and a camera system, conducted during four separate simple bending fatigue tests of steel wire ropes (SWR), several measurable quantities of the SWR which indicate deterioration were identi ed. Based on the measurements of a commercial acoustic emission sensor system of one of the tests in this thesis, the fatigue process of a SWRs in a simple bending test is three-phase, with a relatively long rstand second phase, showing little- and steady increase in activity, respectively, followed by a shorter phase with a ramp up of activity. This three-phase process was recognised in the three other simple bending tests through the processed measurements of a magnetic tester. For the rst time, changes in the lay length of a SWR were detected using a camera system. Diameter measurements using the same camera system were unsuccessful. For one of the SWR tested, a total of ten completely ruptured strands were counted after the SWR had been discarded. However, none of these strands was located in the outer layer of the wire, thus, with the ISO 4309 recommended assessment method for fractured strand(s) being visual inspection [5, p. 11], none of them would have been detected, which is contradictory to ISO 4309's recommendation on discarding the SWR immediately if only one fractured strand is identi ed [5, p. 19]. A short video of the thesis is posted online and can be accessed through: https://youtu.be/4O06OYLnGug