Engineering Failure Analysis, Vol 2, No. 1 pp.

45-57, 1995
Pergamon Copyright © 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd
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1350-6307(95)00004-6

FAILURE MECHANISMS IN WIRE ROPES

C. R. C H A P L I N
Department of Engineering, University of Reading, PO Box 225, Reading RG6 6AY, U.K.
(Received 17 January 1995)

Abstract--The inevitable attrition of wire rope in service is discussed with an overview of the
consequences in terms of inspection and replacement criteria. Details are presented of specific
degradation mechanisms observed in three different applications: a mine hoist rope operating
on a drum winder, a mooring rope for an offshore structure and a spin-resistant single-fall
offshore crane rope. In each case the mechanisms are analysed and steps outlined to alleviate
the problems. It is concluded that generalisation is inappropriate: maintenance, inspection and
discard policy must be determined in recognition of the degradation mechanisms that operate
in different rope applications.

1. W I R E R O P E

A wire rope consists of m a n y wires twisted together to m a k e a complex structure

combining axial strength and stiffness, with flexibility in bending. The m o d e r n rope
m a k e r offers a wide range of constructions with different levels of helical complexity,
and wires of different diameters in combinations to achieve an acceptable perform-
ance in a wide range of applications, m a n y of which are safety critical.
Steel wire is in c o m m o n use with strengths of up to 2100 MPa, though ropes made
of wire with even higher strengths are available [1]. The steel used for these wires is
essentially a plain carbon steel of carefully controlled composition and a carbon
content generally close to the eutectoid. The "patenting" process of isothermal
transformation and work hardening resulting from successive drawing is largely
responsible for achieving such high strengths without the expense of alloying and
m o r e complex heat treatments.
The nature of rope construction provides m a n y parallel load paths, giving it a high
level of redundancy. The essentially helical nature of rope construction leads to radial
load components being generated by applied tensions. These radial loads are reacted
by normal contact stresses between wires which in turn can generate surface shears
such that b r o k e n wires rapidly recover their share of applied load with distance from
the break. In this way every wire in a rope could be broken without detectable loss of
rope strength, provided the breaks are well distributed.
This constructional tolerance to wire breakage is the main reason why it is possible
to use steel wires of such high strength and low ductility (in comparison to steels used
in other "structural" applications). And, rather in the m a n n e r that a weak interface
protects brittle fibres in a composite material [2], the propagation of a crack across a
wire ends at the surface of that wire: there is no resultant stress concentration to
p r o m o t e cracking in adjacent wires, though there is of course some local redistribu-
tion of the load.
So, isolated wire breaks are not in themselves cause for a l a r m - - o n c e detected they
are even useful in serving to indicate the progression of fatigue damage in a rope. It is
a point of experimental observation [3] that, while the distribution of fatigues lives of
similar wires in a rope is very broad, because of the local accumulation of breaks
normally needed to cause rope failure, fatigue of similarly loaded samples of the same
rope form a very narrow banded distribution. For the most part then ropes behave in
a reliable and predictable manner.
45
46 C. R. CHAPLIN

2. SERVICE

In the great majority of applications rope is subjected to repeated bending and

fluctuating tension. It is also subjected to high contact stresses and longitudinal sliding
at points of contact with sheaves and winch drums. The latter are especially severe in
the case of multilayered winch drums, as discussed below.
As a result of its arduous service, rope inevitably degrades during use, and tends to
be regarded as something of a consumable commodity. Because of the continuous
process of attrition inspection procedures should be in place to ensure that a rope is
retired from service before its condition becomes such as to raise the probability of
failure to an unacceptable level. The detectable conditions (referred to as discard
criteria) that determine the appropriate moment to discard a rope should reflect the
conditions of service, the consequences of failure, the mechanisms of degradation
relevant to the application, and the frequency and reliability of inspection. Rope users
occasionally need reminding that the decision to discard must be based, not on
whether the rope has become unsafe, but whether it will become unsafe before the
next inspection.
Although discard decisions focus most easily on numbers of broken wires, most
service discards are based on the combined effects of different damage mechanisms:
wear, corrosion, distortion, mechanical damage and broken wires. National or
international standards or codes of practice that quantify discard in terms of any
combination are rare. Indeed, for any form of degradation other than wire breaks,
many codes resort to subjective descriptions of damage in terms such as "the decision
to accept or reject a deformed rope must depend on the experience of the inspector"
(API RP 2I [4]).
A recent move to rectify this deficiency is seen in the South African draft code of
practice for condition assessment of steel wire ropes on mine winders [5]. This
advocates an approach analogous to a Miner's damage summation where, by
specifying levels of degradation sufficient to warrant discard for each category of
degradation, and by summing the proportions of the different forms, a combined
measurement is given. While this kind of approach may be adequate for a fairly well
defined application it should only be adopted more generally with caution.
These above points are illustrated in the ensuing discussion of the degradation
mechanisms observed in some different applications. While only two of these involve
specific "failures" as such, they all involve progressive degeneration which, if
unchecked, would lead to failure in the catastrophic sense. An advantage available to
an engineer investigating a rope failure is that, because the rope is usually long, it is
often possible to identify signs of impending failure isolated from the consequences of
the actual failure.

3. D R U M W I N D E R MINE H O I S T R O P E S

A more detailed discussion of this topic has been presented by the author
elsewhere [6]. The conditions special to South African gold mines involve rock
hoisting from considerable depths. Currently, the deepest shafts extend 2600 m from
the surface, but, with a need to develop ore bodies located as deep as 3900 m,
secondary underground shafts and associated winding systems are necessary. Future
plans are for single shafts to extend directly to these deep gold deposits [7], but this
will only be feasible with a lowering of the ratio between rope breaking load and
suspended mass (the unfortunately named factor of safety). One of the conditions
needed to accomplish safe winding from great depths is an understanding of the
mechanisms of rope degradation, which has been the motivation for investigating this
application.
In contrast to many European codes, South African hoisting rope regulations do
not operate in terms of a statutory maximum life combined with requirements for
 Failure mechanisms in wire ropes 47

discard based on condition: they are based solely on condition assessment. Procedures
have been established which combine 6-monthly mechanical testing with routine
detailed visual examination and NDT to ensure ropes are replaced in good time. The
condition of ropes at discard and the reasons for discard are of considerable interest
in determining the primary mechanisms of degradation.
Nearly all hoisting in South Africa's deep mines is achieved by means of multi-layer
drum winders [8]. The configuration of a drum winder varies, but in its simplest form
consists of two conveyances, each suspended at the end of a single rope. Each rope is
wound round a drum, and the two drums are mounted on a common shaft. The ropes
are wound onto the drums in different senses so that as one conveyance is raised the
other is lowered, and vice versa. This arrangement means that the drive system only
supplies the difference between the torque needed to hoist one conveyance and the
torque generated by lowering the other, plus what is needed for acceleration and
braking. Regulations limit the attached mass in relation to rope breaking load, as well
as the relationship between breaking load and total suspended mass. The latter, given
a relationship between rope strength and weight, ultimately sets the limit to shaft
depth. Together with the need to achieve a reasonable payload (between, say, 15 and
25 tonnes), this determines rope diameter, typically between, say, 45 and 60 mm.
The restrictions on attached mass (capacity factor) and total suspended mass (factor
of safety) effectively limit the dynamic load range experienced by the rope in normal
operations to 10% of rope breaking load at installation. This is, of course, much less
than the maximum load experienced by the rope in normal operations, which may be
in excess of 20% of the breaking load.
To achieve hoisting at an economic speed (18 m/sec is a typical maximum) and
keep capital cost of equipment to a reasonable level, sheave and drum diameters are
usually 100 times the rope diameter. Even with such a large diameter drum, in order
to accommodate the total length of rope while keeping fleet angles* to a reasonable
level and the drum at an acceptable distance from the shaft, it is necessary to have
several layers of rope on the drum (in some installations to a fifth layer).
This multi-layer winding creates a situation where the outer layers of rope are only
supported by intermittent line contacts with the layer beneath, inevitably creating
very high contact stresses (far higher than those caused by contact with the rounded
groove of the sheave). This places considerable demands on the rope, which are
compounded by the requirement for a high strength-to-weight ratio because, when
hoisting from great depths, the weight of the rope itself is a major part of the total
load. The result in the gold mines of South Africa has been to favorer a "triangular
strand" construction which uses round wires laid into strands shaped to form an
approximately triangular cross-section. The strand shape is such that, when six of
these triangular strands are combined into a rope, the outer surface is approximately
cylindrical. Using "Lang's lay", where the helical sense of the wires in the strands is
the same as that of the strands in the rope, further helps to create a smoother outer
surface.
After a prolonged period in service, a Lang's lay triangular strand hoisting rope
that has operated on a multi-layer drum winder has the characteristic appearance
shown in Fig. i (in which a broken wire can also be seen). Where corrosion is not a
primary consideration, the outer wires at the rope surface will conform to a smooth
cylindrical surface concentric with the rope. Strands are clearly identifiable, but the
wires themselves, which begin life round, become flattened and polished at the rope
surface. In extreme cases the flattened surfaces of the wires almost touch each other,
further reinforcing the impression of a cylindrical surface.
This form of degradation is generally evident throughout the whole length of the
rope, with the exception of the part immediately adjacent to the conveyance which

*The fleet angle is the angle between the rope and a plane normal to the axis of a drum (or sheave). If
the fleet angle is too large the rope tends to chafe on the adjacent wrap (or groove flank) and even miscoil
as winding approaches completion of each layer.
48 C.R. CHAPLIN

Fig. 1. A Lang's lay, triangular strand hoisting rope showing signs of fairly advanced plastic
wear which has led to a fatigue failure of one wire.

n e v e r comes into contact with either the d r u m or the head sheave. The d i s t r i b u t i o n
along the rope is n o r m a l l y such that the d e g r a d a t i o n is m o r e severe towards the d r u m
end.
T h e process occurring in the o u t e r wires is not so m u c h o n e of wear (in the
abrasive sense of material r e m o v a l ) but m o r e a m a t t e r of m a t e r i a l d i s p l a c e m e n t
t h r o u g h a process of plastic d e f o r m a t i o n of the surface layers. In wire ropes, this
process is generally referred to as "plastic w e a r " , and leads to the wire d e v e l o p i n g a
cross-section that is f l a t t e n e d o n o n e side with sharp, irregular " f i n s " p r o t r u d i n g
laterally, as s h o w n in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2. A cross section of an initially round 3.4 mm diameter wire that has experienced plastic
wear. Note the flattened surface and protruding fins.
 Failure mechanismsin wire ropes 49
The plastic displacement of material caused by plastic wear will disrupt the fine
axially oriented grain structure of the original drawn wire, and will also result in
excessive local work hardening and embrittlement. The displaced material is therefore
in a condition which renders it very susceptible to fatigue crack initiation. Broken
wires seen in triangular strand hoisting ropes (that have not been subjected to
unconventional loading or abuse), are typically of the form indicated in Fig. 1, with
fractures that initiate in the edges of the plastically formed fins.
The basic process of underground mining requires quantities of mineral to be
hoisted up a shaft. This means raising conveyances that are loaded and lowering
empty ones. In a drum winder it is this difference in weight between a full and empty
conveyance (the payload) that determines the basic fatigue cycle, with minor
modifications associated with loading, acceleration, braking and other dynamics. The
typical operating parameters of a deep shaft are such that, without the influence of
the plastic wear on the outer wires, the ropes would be operating above the normal
fatigue limit for such constructions [3]. This degradation process is therefore a
combination of tensile fatigue acting on wires sensitised by plastic wear. Any
improvements in endurance will require understanding of the fatigue, which is
dominated by load range, and the plastic wear process. In concluding that this is the
primary degradation mechanism in these deep shaft hoist ropes, the other possible
mechanisms which have been rejected are:
(i) Bending fatigue: the bending ratios (sheave diameter to rope diameter) are so
high that the endurance for "bending over sheaves" fatigue is orders of
magnitude greater than actual service life. However, though small, the superim-
position of these bending stresses on the stresses associated with tensile load will
cause some increase in the tensile fatigue stress range.
(ii) Catenary oscillation: lateral oscillations of the catenary section of the rope
between drum and the sheave in the head frame are excited by cross-over steps in
the winding pattern. These can at first appear damaging, but the bending radii
achieved are always large compared with sheave or drum radius. Damage is only
likely to result if the motions are so violent that miscoiling is induced.
As the loaded conveyance is hoisted to the surface the tensioned rope is wound onto
the drum: each variation in tension is locked in as that part of the rope takes its
position, so that at the completion of the wind the rope on the drum is in a condition
of tension that reflects the tension as it came onto the drum. There are some
limitations to this condition:
(i) There is some compression of the drum barrel which leads to a degree of
relaxation of the overall tension.
(ii) There is a limit to the rate of change of tension along the rope on the drum,
whereby changes must be balanced by frictional transfer according to the
expression thought to have been derived by Euler but published by Eytelwein [9]:

T1 = T2 eu° (1)

where T 1 and T2 are the rope tensions, 0 is the arc of contact over which the
tension changes, and/~ is the effective coefficient of friction.
After emptying, the conveyance is lowered, and, discounting dynamic components,
the tension in the rope throughout its length as it leaves the drum will be lower than
when it was wound on by the weight of mineral hoisted. Thus, as rope on the drum
approaches the tangent point where it loses contact the tension must relax. This
relaxation with associated elastic recovery of extension, extends back round the drum
over a contact arc defined by Eqn (1). This movement is directly analogous to the
"creep" of a rope on a driving sheave, but is more appropriately called "backslip" in
this context because of the direction of motion of the rope slipping back onto the
drum as it comes into the zone of falling tension.
50 C . R . CHAPLIN

The magnitude of this movement was first calculated by Hymans and Hellborn [10]
as

DTo [ l n ( T 0 ] _ (1_ ~)] (2)

2p(EA) \ T~ ]
where T0 and Tt are the rope tensions when winding on and off the drum,
respectively, D is the drum diameter, and EA is the axial stiffness of the rope.
In this expression the static difference between To and T 1 is essentially independent
of the position of the conveyance, but, since the tensions will be lowest when the
conveyance is at the top of the shaft, the ratio T0 to T1 is greatest when the
conveyance is at the top. With typical values this results in backslip decreasing as the
conveyance is lowered. Values of the order of 6 mm at the commencement of the
lowering cycle are considered typical [6].
Although it is apparent that the backslip is greater at the conveyance end of the
rope, plastic wear will be a function of contact force as well. The increasing rope
tension as the conveyance is lowered implies a corresponding increase in contact
pressures. Integrating the product of frictional shear and the increments of slip, the
following expression can be derived for the work done in backslip:

I(T. - TI): per unit length. (3)

2(EA)
This expression is particularly interesting for its apparent simplicity in that it is
independent of not only the friction coefficient, but also of the drum diameter and
the absolute value of the rope tension, and therefore position along the rope.
However, such apparent simplicity can be misleading, and the implications of the
individual terms and the underlying assumptions must be considered carefully before
drawing conclusions as regards any expectation of the distribution of plastic wear. In
particular:
(i) dynamic components during acceleration and deceleration will accentuate the
tension differences for the rope wound onto the drum at the start of the hoisting
cycle;
(ii) a numerical estimate [6] of the contact stresses between wires in adjacent layers
on the drum indicates these to be so high that the "tread pressure", and therefore
the magnitude of the tension, will push the wear into a non-linear regime [11].
These considerations are supported by observations of higher wear rates towards the
drum end of the rope. Observations also indicate that, at any position along the rope,
wear is uniform around the circumference. This uniformity is attributed to the
interaction between tension and torsion which causes sufficient torsional oscillations
of the suspended rope to ensure that it adopts different angular orientations each time
it comes onto the drum. The exception to this is the part of the rope adjacent to the
"dead turns" which never leave the drum. Here rotation is restricted and wear more
local, but changes to rope length and position during maintenance alleviate the
problem. These maintenance procedures also distribute the damaging effects of locally
higher contact stresses at "cross-overs" on the drum, either where the rope moves
from one layer to the next, or when crossing over from the valley formed between
two wraps and the next valley (as shown in Fig. 3). Were this maintenance omitted,
plastic wear would not be uniform, but would be significantly more rapid in these
regions of higher contact stress and effectively tighter curvature.

4. O F F S H O R E M O O R I N G ROPES

Drilling rigs, accommodation vessels, diving support vessels, floating production

systems and other large floating offshore structures use mooring systems to maintain
station. Mooring components currently in use are either chain or wire rope. Wire
 Failure mechanismsin wire ropes 51
rope must cross ridgeinto nextvalleyfor nextwrap

second layer

first layer

grooved drum
Fig. 3. Arrangement of rope on the drum in multi-layer winding, indicating the "turn"
cross-over problem.

rope has the advantage of a much higher strength per unit weight, which tends to
make it more suitable than chain for deep water; it also reduces the deck weight.
Chain is more rugged and can sustain exposure to sea-water for longer. Wire rope has
superior fatigue performance, which is likely to be of increasing significance in the
extreme environmental conditions on the edge of the continental shelf to the west of
the Shetland Islands.
Inevitably this class of application imposes high loads and so requires high strength;
the sizes of rope currently in use ranging from 70 to 135 mm in diameter, the larger
sizes being for floating production systems. The nature of the loading is a function of
the environmental conditions (waves, wind and current), the motion response of the
vessel and the dynamic characteristics of the mooring system; actual line tensions
therefore fluctuate continuously. Design procedures set limits for maximum tensions,
and, for production systems, require calculation of service endurance. Design codes
will permit dynamic loads to rise to high proportions of the manufacturer's catalogue
value of rope strength (the minimum breaking load). The actual values depend on the
design case but typically would be 50% under operating conditions or 67% for
"damaged" (i.e. one line broken) survival conditions. These extremes would only
occur with the environmental loads imposed by a storm with a 100-year return period.
Wire rope moorings normally have no other protection than zinc galvanising and a
heavy grease lubricant which blocks the sea-water from the interstices of the rope. In
such cases, and where fatigue is not a limiting factor, the long-term life of the rope is
controlled by corrosion rates, and especially the rate of zinc dissolution. The
"permanent" mooring ropes of some floating production systems have the added
protection of an extruded polymeric cover which should effectively eliminate the
corrosion problem for the lifetime of the system.
A typical wire rope mooring spread for a drilling rig, or other temporarily moored
vessel, entails a number (typically eight) of six strand ropes radiating from the vessel
falling through a catenary path to the seabed. From the contact point each rope runs
along the sea bed to a drag embedment anchor. At the vessel the rope passes round a
fairlead sheave mounted below water level, then vertically up to a deck mounted
winch. The winch is used for storage of the rope during transit, for pre-loading to set
the anchors and for operational adjustments which include maintaining a mean load
level sufficient for operational station keeping requirements. The magnitude of the
loading required to embed and proof load the anchors will usually be of the order of
50% of the rope breaking load.
The deployment of a mooring line normally entails the anchor being secured by a
short line to a suitable anchor handling vessel. The anchor handling vessel then moves
away from the rig in the required direction as the mooring rope is paid out, sufficient
tension being maintained to avoid contact with the seabed. Once in the correct
position the anchor is lowered to the seabed and rope winched back in to embed the
anchor: tension is then relaxed to the working mean. The line from the anchor to the
anchor handling vessel is released after a buoy has been attached. The purpose of this
"anchor pendant" is to enable the anchor to be lifted so that the process can be
reversed and the mooring rope recovered onto the winch.
52 c.R. CHAPLIN
The special circumstances of this application can lead to failure mechanisms which
do not occur elsewhere: two such mechanisms are described below.

4.1. Chaser damage

In severe weather conditions, the buoy at the upper end of the anchor pendant can
become detached. Then, when the rig is required to move, a different method must
be used to release and recover the anchor. A line must be attached to the anchor. A
tool for this purpose, developed first for use with chain mooring lines, is a "chaser".
The chain chaser is a large open cast-steel hook, typically some 1.5 m across, which is
lowered from the stern of the anchor handling vessel to fish for the mooring rope
close to the moored vessel. When the mooring rope has been hooked, the anchor
handling vessel heads off in the direction of the anchor, paying out the line but
maintaining what the skipper considers an adequate tension. By this process the
chaser slides along the mooring rope until it comes up against the stock of the anchor.
This is likely to entail significant force as the anchor will be buried in the seabed. The
line is tensioned and, all being well, the anchor lifted.
Careless chasing can induce local damage in the form of severe bends or local
abrasion if the chaser gets temporarily stuck at a rope termination. The latter can be
so severe as to cause broken wires. But these forms of damage are not too difficult to
detect when the rope is recovered and inspected. Much more serious is almost
undetectable metallurgical damage.
As the chaser slides along the rope, it tends to adopt a "slip-stick" motion, with
high contact pressures, high friction and intermittently high speed. The effect of this
action is to produce local surface temperatures that are high enough to cause a phase
change of the high carbon steel to an austenitic structure. The surface austenite is
then quenched by the cold surrounding material, assisted by the sea-water environ-
ment, to create patches of a hard brittle white etching phase, generally considered to
be martensite. This form of damage in ropes is not unknown, being first reported by
Stead in 1911 [12] and described in detail by Trent in 1941 [13].
The brittle patches also tend to be pre-stressed in tension by the cooling process,
which further exacerbates the embrittling effect. In a severe case wires in a mooring
rope will shatter like glass rods as the rope is wound onto the winch drum. In less
severe cases the patches form sites from which fatigue cracks readily initiate, as seen
in Fig. 4, where they are accompanied by corrosion. The effect on fatigue endurance
can be considerable, leading in tensile fatigue to a pattern of wire breaks running
along the crowns of the strands. Fatigue fractures of this type are apparent in Fig. 5,
which shows a test specimen selected from a used mooring rope: the damage was only
identified as a result of the test.
The problems caused by chasing are now more widely recognised and steps are
being taken to prevent the problems described above. One policy is to use a
modification of the hooked chain chaser in the form of a "roller" chaser designed to
roll along the rope. This is only marginally successful as the roller tends to jam. An
alternative is to dispense with both the chaser and the pendant rope buoy, lowering
the pendant onto the seabed with some attached scrap chain as a clump weight. Then,
noting the position carefully, modern navigational aids make it a straightforward
matter to recover the pendant by grappling.

4.2. Crushing on the winch

Multi-layer winding, as described above in the context of mine hoisting, leads to
high contact stresses where outer wraps rest on the supporting layers beneath. In a
typical mooring rope winch the loading between rope layers is an order of magnitude
more severe than in a mine winder because the drum diameters are lower by a factor
of 5, and rope tensions up by a factor of 2. The contact problems are exacerbated
where the rope crosses over from one valley to the next, as illustrated above in Fig. 3,
 Failure mechanisms in wire ropes 53

~ A ¸ ~ +, .... + + ,+

Fig. 4. Corrosion fatigue initiated from brittle surface "white etching" patches caused by
chasing.

Fig. 5. Part of a 70 mm diameter mooring rope subjected to tensile fatigue after removal from
service. Note the wire fractures along the strand crown positions initiated from local surface
"white etching" patches.

when contact forces are generated against the adjacent wrap pushing the rope across
to its new position.
W h e n a winch is being operated under conditions of high rope tension, e.g. when
applying a p r o o f load to set an anchor, the contact forces between adjacent wraps can
be so high as to crush the rope permanently. The associated plastic deformation is
generally restricted to the outermost wires, which are displaced in approximately
tangential directions. Figure 6 shows a case of m o d e r a t e crushing, where it can be
seen that the damage extends along the rope far enough to involve all strands and a
significant proportion of the outer wires. The distortion has induced p e r m a n e n t
elongation of those wires affected, but there are no broken wires. M e a s u r e m e n t of
the ultimate strength of such a rope would show little loss of strength f r o m the
strength of the new rope, because there is sufficient ductility in the wires to allow all
to reach their ultimate stress before any break. H o w e v e r , under normal operating
54 C.R. CHAPLIN

Fig. 6. Crushing damage in a mooring rope, 12 m from the point of failure.

loads the distorted wires carry no load: all the applied load must be supported by the
undeformed wires. Consequently, fatigue performance is greatly impaired.
At a position 12 m distant from the damage shown in Fig. 6, this mooring rope had
parted in service. The locations and character of the wire breaks indicated fatigue
failures within the strands and subsequent ductile failures in the distorted outer wires.
The location of the failure, and the section shown in Fig. 6, was outboard of the
fairlead at the time of the failure. Ironically, rope previously damaged on the drum
had been moved out into this active part of the line after rope damaged by chasing
operations was removed from the outboard end, and the rope shortened.
The impact of this kind of damage on fatigue performance can be estimated from
an assessment of the effective (i.e. elastic) load bearing area [14]. If this effective
proportion of the cross section is R, and the inverse of the slope of the fatigue S - N
line on a logarithmic plot is m , then, assuming there is no other deleterious influence
on fatigue performance (which in reality is unlikely), the minimum reduction of the
fatigue life will be as given in the following expression:
fatigue life of damaged rope = (R)'". (4)
fatigue life of new rope
Given that the value of m for wire ropes of appropriate size and construction is at
least 4 and may be in excess of 5 [15], and outer wires constitute at least 40% of the
area of a six-strand rope, this kind of damage can have a devastating effect on life.

5. M U L T I - S T R A N D O F F S H O R E C R A N E R O P E

Offshore oil platforms receive the bulk of their supplies by sea, which are then
transferred from boat to platform by crane. Wherever possible, this will be done
using the most rapid means available, which will involve the single fall "whipline"
from the tip of the jib of a typical offshore crane. The height of lifts involved
necessitates the use of a spin-resistant rope construction, invariably a multi-strand
rope of 19 strands each of seven wires, or 35 seven-wire strands as shown in Fig. 7.
 Failure mechanismsin wire ropes 55

Fig. 7. Schematiccross section of 35-strand multi-strandrope. Note that, in order to achieve a

spin-resistant construction, the first layer has a different lay from the inner layers.

A further complication with this application is that heave motions of the vessel can
lead to significant additional dynamic tension components at the moment the load is
"snatched" from the deck. These dynamic tension fluctuations give rise to extension
of the rope and resultant reciprocating short bending motions over the pulley at the
tip of the jib. This mode of bending fatigue, termed bending-tension [3], is in addition
to the normal bending fatigue in the rope associated with lifting and lowering. The
repetitive nature of these lifting operations means that the same part of the rope, i.e.
the part that the sheave contacts when the hook is at supply boat deck level, is
repeatedly subjected to this additional fatigue. Rajan [16] has reported a number of
incidences of whipline failures, invariably at this location.
A problem for the rope user is that this class of rope construction invariably
deteriorates internally [17]. Long before the broken wires that are the usual sign of
fatigue degradation become visible externally, the rope is likely to have developed so
many broken wires internally that strength has dropped to the level of applied
tension. The mechanisms which operate to cause this condition are fretting wear and
fretting fatigue at the high angle crossed contacts between the wires in strands in the
first and second layers. Even in the optimum conditions of laboratory fatigue tests,
ropes of this class of construction barely attain the "visible wire break" discard
criterion before they fail [17, 18].
In an offshore crane whipline the process of internal degradation can be further
compounded in the presence of a corrosive environment resulting from exposure to
air-borne salt-water spray. Figure 8 shows a prime example of this type, where
externally the rope appears almost undamaged, while internally the rope has all but
disintegrated. The offshore crane rope which is illustrated failed in service a few
metres from the location of the photographs. It may be noted that similar circum-
stances of loading, environment and rope construction are also applicable to diving
bell hoist ropes [19], but it is to the credit of vigilant inspection and a disciplined
approach to safety that there have been no such failures recorded in that application.
The remedies needed to control and avoid this form of failure are [19]:
(i) use of a corrosion-resistant zinc-galvanised rope;
(ii) use of an effective relubrication system, preferably employing a pressure
relubricator;
(iii) where rope is to be maintained in service for a long period, adoption of a "slip
and cut" maintenance policy that shifts the critical parts, and facilitates internal
inspection and test of the section removed;
(iv) employment of an electromagnetic NDT system as a supplement to visual
inspection to monitor internal degradation.
56 C. R. CHAPLIN

Fig. 8. The exterior and interior of a multi-strand offshore crane rope at a short distance from
the location of a service failure.

6. C O N C L U S I O N S

General conclusions as to the causes and remedies of rope failure are inappropri-
ate, inadequate or actually misleading. It is, however, of value to note that, for the
majority of rope applications, the harsh duty cycle of working ropes means that
degradation will inevitably occur over time. It is the user's responsibility, as guided
and regulated by the appropriate authority, to monitor degradation and remove rope
before it becomes a safety risk. As indicated in the few examples described above,
which may be compared with lift ropes that last for many years, and oil rig drilling
lines, for which operating conditions can be so aggressive that they can be destroyed
in a few hours, the spectrum of degradation mechanisms and deterioration rates is
such that broad guidance can only be in the form of bland generalisations. Main-
tenance policy, inspection methods and frequency, and discard criteria must recognise
the degradation mechanisms and deterioration rates applicable to the specific class of
application.

REFERENCES

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 Failure mechanisms in wire ropes 57

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