Study on wear and contact behaviors in discrete elliptical contact areas of a cyclically bended regular lay wire rope

Abstract

Interwire wear occurs in a regular lay wire rope that is wound repeatedly around a sheave, in particular for the discrete elliptical contact areas between the helical layers. In this study, an analysis method for the wear behavior in the said elliptical contact areas of a regular lay wire rope that is subjected to a cyclic bending load is proposed based on finite element method and Archard wear theory. The contact and slip parameters between the helical layers are solved first, and then the wear depth due to the frictional contact interaction is obtained with a Fortran program. The results show that both the interwire wear depth and contact pressure between the helical layers of the regular lay wire rope change at a large rate in the early stage, and tend to be stable as the wear process goes on. The increase of wear cycles leads to enlarged and deeper wear scars but decreased contact interactions at the elliptical contact regions. The wear and contact properties depend on the phase angle position of the contact interface, and the area at the phase angle of 45° is in the most danger of failures that are caused by severe wear and contact.