Fatigue prediction for hoist cables over sheaves in large mining shovel application

Abstract

Cables are used in many engineering applications, whether considered as stationary or running cables. In the latter, ropes are subjected to repeated tension and bending as they run over a sheave wheel. Such loading scenarios are seen for large mining equipment such as draglines and shovel hoist ropes. Fretting fatigue failure often occurs after several cycles of loading because of wires rubbing against each other and external wires rubbing against sheave wheels. It is also pertinent to understand the behaviour of cables subjected to bending over sheaves, to be able to predict fretting fatigue life, so as to set preventive maintenance activities to avoid catastrophic failure in such systems. In this paper, the behaviour of 2 specific configuration strands, composing either 7 or 19 wires, bent over a sheave is investigated numerically. To aid preventive maintenance inspection, critical locations of stress concentrations are identified as a function of applied load or tensile stress. The investigation also considers the impact of groove size, diameter of sheave to diameter of cable ratio, and contact length, enabling the application to infer fatigue life.

A Thermo-Mechanical Stress Based Fatigue Life Evaluation of a Mine Hoist Drum Brake System Using COMSOL Multiphysics

“…In the case of mine hoists, research of fatigue evaluation has concentrated on the fretting fatigue of the hoisting rope [ 23 ], steel wire fatigue due to bending over the sheaves [ 24 ], and the tribo-fatigue because of the rope and friction pulley contact [ 25 , 26 ]. Additionally, the cage steel guide fatigue [ 27 ], the fatigue endurance of the load bearing elements [ 28 ], the fatigue damage accumulation of the winding drum [ 29 , 30 ], and the headframe structure improvement to sustain fatigue [ 31 , 32 ] were studied but, as far as we are aware, no previous research regarding the fatigue life evaluation of the components of mine hoist brakes was published.…”

Quantitative Demonstration of Wear Rate and Dissipation Energy during Tension–Torsion Cyclic Loading of Steel Wires with Fretting Contact in Different Environmental Media

“…Winkler et al explored the fretting fatigue behavior of tensioned steel monostrand and quantified the bending stiffness and relative displacement between adjacent layer wires along the length of monostrand [11]. Wokem et al proposed that fretting fatigue failure often occurred in the cable bent over sheaves and presented empirical equations of fatigue life of the cable [12]. Considering the tension-torsion cyclic loading of steel wires with fretting contact, Wang et al [3] explored wear mechanisms and crack propagations of steel wires under tension-torsion fretting-fatigue with different tribo-fatigue parameters and corrosive media.…”