Elliott Traffic Safety Service L60, Operator'S Manual

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Wire Rope Care/Maintenance EEC-0117 V1.0
Wire Rope
Care/Maintenance
Typical Evidence of Wear and Abuse
A "birdcage" is caused by sudden release of tension and
the resulting rebound of rope. These strands and wires will not
be returned to their original positions. The rope should be
replaced immediately.
This is localized wear over an equalized sheave. The
danger here is that it's invisible during the rope's operation, and
that's why you need to inspect this portion of an operating rope regularly. The rope
should be pulled off the sheave during inspection and bent to check for broken wires.
This is a wire rope with a high strand -- a condition in
which one or more strands are worn before adjoining strands.
This is caused by improper socketing or seizing, kinks or dog-legs. It reoccurs every
6th strand in a six-strand rope.
A kinked wire rope is shown here. It's caused by pulling
down a loop in a slack line during handling, installation or
operation. Note the distortion of the strands and individual
wires. This rope must be replaced.
Here's a wire rope that has jumped a sheave. The rope
"curled" as it went over the edge of the sheave. There are two
types of breaks here: tensile "cup and cone" breaks and shear
breaks that appear to have been cut on an angle.
Drum crushing is caused by small drums, high loads and
multiple winding conditions.
If broken wires are detected during the course of an inspection, particularly those
that could cross adjacent wires and destroy them when running over sheaves, these